The cries for help of a mare that was betrayed by those who she trusted.
Sunset was a proud mare, and her future was a bright one.
Until everything went downhill, but a ray of hope appeared in the form of her daughter. She gave her the will to continue once again, just to have that little light get crushed by some dark plotting and betrayal by the one she once trusted.
Her view of the world changed drastically and now only two things were on her mind, anger and the hope to see her daughter again.
Something that came to me in my boredom, this isn't related to my other stories at all, this doesn't take place in the same universe as those and is located at the start of the show.
Inside a dimension devoid of anything even time itself, a lone mare lived against her will.
She had a light amber coat, red and brilliant yellow mane and tail, her cutie mark was a red and yellow shimmering sun.
“Hmm, it seems that I have visitors, or I’m getting insane on this place, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter at this point.” The mare in question said to the emptiness.
Still feeling that she was being watched, she sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to pretend that somepony is here with me.” Making her mind, she cleared her throat, “I should introduce myself I guess. My name is Sunset Shimmer everypony, and most if not all of you should be wondering, what is such a beautiful mare like me doing on this black void of nothingness, am I right?” she said to the darkness, the darkness didn’t answer.
A sad sigh left her, “I’m being so pathetic right now, talking to imaginary beings just to fill this emptiness in my heart.” A tear that was quickly wiped by her hoof left her eye.
Sunset recomposed herself with a deep breath, “If somepony is there listening then I should explain what happened from the beginning, and if not then at least it would help me release some steam.”
This started 16 years ago; I managed to get a position in the solar guard thanks to my magic skills, being one of the best students of Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns does wonders if you really pay attention and not just go there to rub your ego on those who didn’t got to enter. Pfft, useless pricks.
My first year was uninteresting at best, there were some minor incidents here and there but everything was calm most of the time. A certain day though, when I managed to stop an attack against the Princess all by myself I got promoted to sergeant. You may be wondering which “Princess” I saved don’t you? Well, I prefer not mentioning the name of that mare more than once, because otherwise I get sick of my stomach.
Anyways, a couple of months after my promotion somepony asked me out, I was skeptical at first but he was an insistent guy, after some more tries I gave him a chance because I was finding his antics “cute” to say the least. You may notice the lack of this name too; well just try to guess why that could be? I actually being serious on that one, just try to guess why before I tell you and if you guess correctly you’ll get an imaginary cookie.
As time went by, our relationship went uphill. That is until a certain day… well, you probably know the whole story about a mama pony and a papa pony that loves each other a whole lot; end up with a little miracle that comes from the foal fountain in the sky.
…
…
I hate myself so much for that reference, I’m sorry everypony.
*Ahem*, the point is that I was with foal at that time. I was happy to be a mother I really was, but apparently daddy didn’t get the memo that week, because I found him flirting with other mares and never gave me the time of day again. Don’t get me wrong, I tried countless time to get an explanation out of him but the coward ended up moving away.
I could’ve cried but I had to stay strong for my foal, my pregnancy time wasn’t the best. To add into things my superiors laughed at me, even rookies were mocking me, my parents didn’t care about me; apparently I “disappointed them” or something among those lines.
My life was being ruined, everything just kept on pilling up, and I was in no shape to be a guard with a foal and nopony who could take care of it. That’s why I quit being a guard two months before the date of birth; I took all my savings from Canterlot’s bank and moved Manehattan to start a new life.
It was tough to say the least; I’m not going to joke about that. The two last months passed and the day came. I don’t want to go into details about that, it’s private. But everything went without complications if you must know.
That’s when my life did a big turn from Tartarus to Paradise, I got blessed with an adorable filly unicorn, I just wished she would haven’t inherited that creamy white coat from her father *sigh* at least she has the red part of my mane color and surprisingly she has red eyes, which was strange to say the least, nopony in my family ever had foals with red eyes… well mostly… at some point in the distant past there was a couple of foals with red eyes on my family but it was so unlikely.
Whatever the case that didn’t make her any less adorable, it was the total opposite of that.
Just thinking about my little angel warms my destroyed and scarred heart, and even back then I felt the same way. For that reason I called her blazing heart, at that moment I didn’t caught on how literal her name would turn out to be.
The first couple of years were tough, I wasn’t able to go out and get a job. I had to take care of Blazy, and I couldn’t afford to pay a foalsitter. I had to sell some personal objects, but it was all worth it to raise Blazy.
On her third birthday, I wasn’t able to do much either, I felt so useless. With a scarred heart I gave her two white mane ribbons. I honestly expected her to throw the package at my face from the disappointment but…
“Twankyu mommy, I wove you!” she responded to me happily with a big smile, before hugging me.
My heart almost exploded, I couldn’t control my emotions and tears came out at full force.
Why?
Why did she say those words to me? Our home barely stood presentable and we didn’t have a lot of things, I was struggling to get food or any essential articles.
“I love you too my angel,” I told her with tears in my eyes, this wasn’t the time to wail about my failures, this was the time to make up for them.
Since then Blazy always wore those ribbons styling her mane into twin tails. Her magic was developing rapidly so I taught her some basic levitation.
Time passed and a new year started, I managed to get a job in a library close to home, it wasn’t much but the owned let me have Blazy there as long as she didn’t disturb the quiet atmosphere. That wasn’t a problem since Blazy was well behaved.
Things went well for some time, sure being a librarian didn’t paid too much but it was a relaxing activity and Blazy took a liking for reading, no egghead level mind you.
When I saved a little amount I enrolled Blazy on a kindergarten, she was so excited about it. It was an adorable sight.
Yeah… it was…
Fate apparently didn’t like me being happy in the slightest, because just two weeks after that Blazy started to look down, she tried to fake a good mood but I noticed right away.
She kept the act for some more days until I caught her crying, knowing that asking Blazy directly wouldn’t do any good I decided to go and ask the teachers. As I thought Blazy had problems with some bullies, I asked them to do something about it, they agreed and I went home somewhat relieved.
I should have punched myself for believing those idiot teachers, Blazy kept coming home with sadness on her eyes.
Things didn’t get any better with the pass of time; I made a scene at Blazy’s kinder. But I couldn’t control myself, those foals were pushing her around I had to stop it, then I used my magic to kept them away from Blazy and scold them. Obviously their parents weren’t happy with that, one thing led to another and I ended up kind of punching a couple of idiot parents in the face.
Because of that Blazy got expelled, I got fired by the gossip going around and overall I got a bad reputation on the neighborhood. I thought ponies here would be different, but it doesn’t seem to matter where I am misfortune always seem to follow me, it’s like somepony had a grudge against me or something.
What I didn’t know at the time was that one of the guys I hit was a royal guard, and just like that a week later they came to arrest me. Could this get any worse would you ask? Believe me I wouldn’t be here if that were a lie.
Apparently I was charged with treason against the crown or some garbage like that. By the way I noticed something interesting on my time here, there aren’t any restraints on this place, I figured this out the first time I cursed the name of that mare, apparently Equestria has some kind of censor magic in the air or somepony really wanted to make as family friendly as possible I don’t know. But it feels great to be actually free I just wished my daughter wasn’t suffering right now.
Oh yeah the story, sorry about that. You wouldn’t believe who showed up to arrest me, miss perfection herself Princess Sunbutt was there with a stern expression.
“I couldn’t believe it when I read the report, ex sergeant Shimmer; I had high expectations about you, I’m deeply disappointed.” She said in a disappointed tone.
I stared at her with an angry frown, “I’ll let you know that the feeling is mutual.”
“Guards, take her away,” she ordered to the four guards that came with her.
They put hoof cuffs on me and restrained my magic with an inhibitor.
“Mommy! Let go off my mommy!” I heard Blazy’s voice.
One of the guards caught her.
“Don’t harm her please! Throw me in a dungeon if you want but don’t do anything to her!” I shouted and then one of them hit me.
“Silence!” one of them shouted to me.
“There’s no need to be hostile gentlecolts,” the Princess said calmly.
“Don’t hit my mommy!”
What happened next was something I didn’t expect, Blazy got her first magical surge but it was different. For starters I saw a cutiemark on her flank; it was a black heart with flames around it. That was strange because she didn’t have a cutiemark she wasn’t even the normal age for a cutiemark to appear.
But that wasn’t all, Blazy literally fired flames from her horn, fire magic wasn’t a common thing at all, in fact like every other elemental magic it was almost forgotten.
The guard that foolishly grabbed Blazy got seriously burned, *tch* lucky bastard got it easy.
“Impressive,” I heard Sunbutt say, a quick look at her showed a satisfied expression.
“Just like I expected, the descendant of the fire spirit was this filly. Guards, don’t intervene leave her to me.” The idiot guards nodded as Sunbutt approached Blazy.
“Oh, my poor child, I’m sorry my guard did that to you. If there is something auntie Celestia can do for you just ask.”
“I want mommy!”
“Of course, guards please bring Sunset over here,” the devious expression on her face didn’t help my nerves, and I was right as soon as I got dragged closer Blazy tried to get to me but that bastard knocked her out with a spell.
Soon after I got knocked out too, last thing I saw was the smug face on that bitch’s face.
When I woke up I saw her again, I just wanted to break her neck right there but I was chained and couldn’t move.
“Good morning Sunset, I hope my hospitality is of your liking.”
“Where’s my daughter? Where’s Blazing Heart!?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about my little sunshine; she is being taken care of by my personal she’ll be of great help to me in the future.”
“What did you do to her!?”
“Nothing yet, but a wild creature like her needs to be tamed, after all she will be my secret weapon.”
“Wha…” I stared at her in disbelief.
“And to be sure you don’t interfere I’ll erase you from her memories, and put you in a place from where you cannot escape.”
I saw her horn light up, and I felt myself starting to disappear from my hind hooves.
“Before you go to your new and permanent room, I have to be sincere with you Sunset.”
She got closer and whispered to my ear, “Everything that led to your downfall was my plan from the start.”
My eyes shrunk from the shock, “T-that means…”
“Yes, you having that filly was planned from the start, your potential was a clue that you were related to the ancient fire spirit, and your foal was most likely to be the next incarnation of it. So I paid a guard to get you pregnant, and pulled some strings to make your life as pathetic as possible. In the remote case your foal wasn’t what I was looking for; your life would be destroyed enough for you to figure anything out.”
“Fortunately you gave birth to it, you moving out of Canterlot wasn’t planned but that didn’t change anything drastically, I just put some guards on each city to look for you. When I found out where you were I just needed to destroy your life again, and what better way than to make you lose your job and terrorize your child, the guard you hit was paid to provoque you so I could have an excuse to put you under custody and obtain what I wanted.”
I was beyond rage point, “why… you…”
“Equestria has many enemies my little pony, and I will do what I must to protect it from them. Now I wish you fare thee well Sunset Shimmer, you made a great contribution to your country, too bad nopony will remember you ever existed. Also don’t worry about Blazing Heart, you’ll be able to see her development.”
Then everything went dark.
And that’s why I’m here on this forsaken place, that miserable princess was right to her promise and showed me how Blazing Heart painfully grew from my little angel to a soulless mare, they destroyed her mind. I heard her crying for me to save her… the tortures she had to go through were too much for me, I tried to escape this place but it was useless.
12 years has passed, 12 years of seeing my adorable filly being tortured and converted into an empty shell of her former self. 12 years of anger against the one who at one point I admired.
If somepony is out there, please… please save Blazing Heart, she doesn’t deserve that life, I don’t care if I have to disappear but please save her… I’m begging you everypony please save my little Blazy…
Sunset cried once again, this time without holding anything back; she blamed herself for everything that happened.
Her pleas for help at the empty void would most likely be in vain. But who knows, maybe not everything was lost, maybe somewhere somepony could grant her wish.
“I’m so sorry Blazy…”
In the secret room where Blazing Heart was held, she was soundly sleeping.
‘I’m so sorry Blazy…’ she heard in her head a voice that she thought was an illusion.
She suddenly shot up from the covers, eyes scanning her room. Her eyes didn’t have their shine anymore making her have a dead stare.
‘I’m so sorry…’ she heard it again, now tears were coming out of her eyes for the first time in years.
Then the image of a mare flashed on her mind, it was Sunset, her mother.
“Mommy… Mommy!” she shouted and some guards entered the room.
They tried to restraint her but they forgot how terrible karma can be.
The two fools were incinerated to ashes by the same weapon that was supposed to serve Equestria.
Blazing Heart was unstable, her emotions were returning to her, and in an moment’s impulse she teleported somewhere.
When she arrived to her destination, a dirt path that was adjacent to a forest with a course of water flowing in between, the mare appeared unconscious.
Blazing Heart lay unconscious in the middle of the dirt part with some parts charred around her.
Her mind was devoid of any dreams, even unconscious ponies were able to dream but Blazing Heart wasn’t able to, even by sleeping normally. All those years of mind manipulation via experimental spells partially blocked that part of her brain.
All she ever sees while sleeping is a black void, a void comparable to the one her mother was sent into.
Her ears were still way too sensitive from her obligatory and exhaustive training sessions. The sound of hooves and a quiet gasp alerted her of somepony’s presence.
Fluttershy was feeding some of her birds early in the morning.
“Please don’t eat it too fast.” She said gently.
The birds nodded and pecked away.
Suddenly she noticed a light flashing on the path leading to her cottage.
She didn’t want to check it out, and was in the way to get inside her home but a quick glance at the path she saw a white pony laying there.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Fluttershy then picked her first aid kit from the bathroom and went to check if the pony was ok.
Getting there Fluttershy noticed the charred areas and gasped quietly. She took the first aid kit she was balancing on her back and put it on the ground and looked at what she now knew was a unicorn mare to see if she had any injuries.
Fluttershy noticed the flickering of the mare’s ear, this was a sign that she was awake, and saw how she slowly opened her eyes.
“Oh my goodness, are you ok?” Fluttershy asked with concern.
“I’m… fine,” the monotone voice of the mare said.
Fluttershy saw how the mare stood up, something about her eyes wasn’t right, normally pony eyes shows a whole lot of emotion, but this mare’s eyes were devoid of any, her stare was empty.
“Are you sure? We are close to my home; you are welcome to rest for a bit in there if you want.” Fluttershy suggested, her motherly instincts pushed her to try and take care of this young mare, something about her screamed ‘don’t leave me alone’ to Fluttershy.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to intrude,” the mare said with her voice that was as alive as the ghosts roaming the catacombs.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, come on I insist.” Fluttershy said with a warm smile.
The mare still gave her the same empty stare, “I should go, have a good day.” She turned to leave somewhere, she herself wasn’t sure about what to do now.
Fluttershy got in front of her with a frown, “now listen here missy, you’re in no condition to wander about in town. You will come with me and enjoy a nice breakfast do you understand?” she said firmly.
Blazing Heart stared at her with a raised brow at this crazy mare that was just ordering her to do something, ‘who does she thinks she is to order me anything, I just accept orders from…’ then something flashed on her mind.
A flashback showing herself as a filly being told something similar by a unicorn mare, the mare was familiar to her, but she wasn’t able to put her hoof on it. Suddenly a barrage of other memories assaulted her mind; the pressure made her sit down, close her eyes and lift her hooves to her head to try to block the images somehow.
Fluttershy got worried when she saw the pained expression on the white mare’s face, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m so sorry…” she said sadly.
‘I’m so sorry…’ that voice made Blazing Heart open her eyes in shock and started to tear up, the gray ribbons on her mane turned white and cutiemark’s black half turned red, her hooves lowered to the ground, fresh tears falling to the ground.
Fluttershy did what she thought was best and hugged the distressed mare, surprisingly it was returned, and the mare was now loudly crying. “Shh, it’s okay… let it all out,” Fluttershy hold her while the mare released all her sorrows in tears.
Some minutes passed, and the mare was just sobbing quietly.
“Do you feel better?” Fluttershy asked softly.
“Y-yes, thank you miss…” Blazing Heart’s voice had a higher pitch now.
“Fluttershy, now umm…”
“Blazing Heart,” she said pulled back ending the hug, she then wiped some tears of her eyes with a hoof, “My name is Blazing Heart or Blazy for short.”
Fluttershy noticed a drastic change in Blazy’s behavior, for one her eyes weren’t empty anymore and gave a happier feeling than before, “Alright Blazy, do you want to have breakfast with me?” Fluttershy asked again.
A little grumble answered for her, slightly blushing she said, “a little bit would be fine…”
The two mares went to Fluttershy’s cottage and got some breakfast. There Blazy got told about the bird’s training for the summer sun celebration that was going to be hosted just next morning.
“Do you mind if I tag along? And maybe you can tell something about where I’am?”
“Oh, sure you can come with me, but why the second question? Are you not from around here?”
“I can’t remember… I try and try to remember, but nothing comes up.”
“Oh, that’s very bad, maybe you hit your head hard with something and that’s why you were unconscious on the dirt path.”
Blazing Heart started to feel a sharp pain in her head, “Argh!”
Fluttershy quickly was by her side, “Blazy please don’t try to force it, that can be bad for you, especially when you’re in no condition for it. Give it time, I’m sure your memories will come back.” She put a reassuring hoof on Blazy’s back.
Blazy complied and stopped forcing herself to remember, the pain slowly faded away, “You’re right Fluttershy, I’m sorry for worrying you.”
Fluttershy hugged her apologetic friend, “its ok I’ll be with you as long as I can to help you.”
Returning the hug Blazy said, “Thank you.”
“Hmm, Fluttershy?”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t you supposed to start the bird’s training now?”
“Are you sure you want to come and not rest some?”
“I’m sure, some fresh air can help I guess.”
“Then let’s go, Blazy.”
And with that Blazing Heart and Fluttershy went to a little clearing just barely outside the town, Fluttershy took fly to gather the birds. Blazy decided to let her do her thing and just looked around to see if something clicked a memories, that’s when she noticed a royal chariot passing by in the sky. Something on the back of her mind felt uneasy.
In Canterlot’s Castle, Celestia was extremely disappointed, the weapon she has been working so hard on, suddenly escaped.
“Weren’t you able to track her down yet, sergeant?”
“My apologies your highness, we still have no clue to where she could be.”
“I hope to get results soon sergeant, my sunshine is of vital importance to Equestria.”
“As you wish Princess, in other hoof what are we going to do about the two guards that were dispatched by your sunshine?” the stallion said with a hint of anger.
“What about them? They didn’t do anything worth of their positions, in any case just send some compensation to their families and get on with the search.”
The stallion was shocked by the lack of any interest on the diseased guards. But did a reverence and left.
Celestia wrote a short letter to one of her commanders to dispose of this passionate sergeant.
‘I don’t have time to deal with this incompetence, or Twilight’s predictions I hope that filly settles down in that rubbish town.’ She thought to herself, ‘I can’t sense the link I put on Blazing Heart, something has severed it but what?’ Then an idea came to her mind, ‘Her…’
Sunset’s body lazily floated in the empty dimension, she cried herself to sleep. She didn’t sulk on her misery for a long time, but remembering her past and how she wasn’t able to protect the only thing important in her life took the better of her.
Her dreams were interrupted rudely by a voice she hated, “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Sergeant Sunset Shimmer crying, that’s a very fitting image for you.”
Sunset was awake now but didn’t want anything to do with this mare so she faked sleep.
“You can’t fool me Sunset; I know you’re not sleep.” Celestia still got no response.
‘Go away, go away, go away!’ Sunset thought, irritated by Celestia’s presence.
Celestia used her magic to flash a memory inside the void. It was one of torture sessions Blazing Heart had to go through when she was filly.
“Mommy! Mommy! Where are you!?” the cries of the filly resonated in the empty space.
Sunset tried her best, but she gave up and upon opening her eyes the image of her little Blazy being the target of multiple memory altering spells was on her range of view.
The horrified expression in Sunset’s face amused Celestia, “That’s more like it, my little pony.”
“W-what do you want?” the memory ended but the image was still present on Sunset’s mind.
“Just wanted to pay a visit to my savior, and ask you if you had any contact with my sunshine?”
“Go to hell.”
“I can start tormenting you less if you cooperate with me.”
“I don’t believe a single word you say to me, you piece of trash.”
“It seems you still didn’t learn to behave yourself, I’ll come back and you better answer to my request Sunset.” With that Celestia’s illusion disappeared but she conjured various memories from the past to torture Sunset, the mare tried to shut them down but that did little good as those increased in volume.
‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!’ Sunset kept repeating that in her mind while closing her eyes as tightly as she could and pressed her ears with her hooves against her head.
‘She didn’t seem to be lying to me, but if Sunset wasn’t the cause for the link to be broken then what was it?’ I need to have total control over that power to protect what is rightfully mine.’ Celestia thoughts were a mix between worry and anger, worry of what Blazing Heart could do if she recovers her mind, and anger at how careless she had become. How could she take that Blazing Heart was under her control for granted, she should have put her into a more strict regimen.
Back in Ponyville, Blazy was watching at Fluttershy directing the birds to sing in sync. It was something incredible to her, “that’s a beautiful symphony Flutters.” She complimented.
Blushing slightly Fluttershy answered with a simple, “Thank you.”
“Hello!” a voice behind them said.
“Ahh!” the two of them yelped in unison and looked at the purple unicorn behind them. The birds flew away.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to frighten your birds. I’m just here to check on the music and it sounded beautiful.” The unicorn said.
Fluttershy who was airborne descended to the ground and kick it shyly a few times while covering her face with her mane and avoiding eye contact. Blazy was looking from the distance.
The unicorn awkwardly looked around, before focusing on Fluttershy again, “I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight waited a few seconds for a reply but it didn’t come, “What’s your name?”
“I’m… I’m Fluttershy…” Fluttershy said while still avoiding eye contact and hiding behind her mane.
Twilight didn’t quite hear that, “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Um, my name isumFluttershy…” Fluttershy said while backing away feeling uncomfortable.
“Didn’t quite catch that,” Twilight said trying to not sound too forceful.
She wanted to step forward but suddenly she was stopped by a white hoof the blocked the way.
“Stop that, don’t push it anymore or you’ll know me for real,” Blazing Heart’s voice became raspy and had a more aggressive tone in it. The ribbons on her mane turned black the same with her cutiemark.
Twilight backed a few steps at the threat, “who are you?”
“That’s none of your business, now leave my friend in peace, shoo shoo.” Blazy did shooing motions with her hooves.
“Hey! Don’t say it like that; you make it sound like I was bullying her!” Twilight replied with indignation.
“My point exactly,” Blazy turned to face Fluttershy, “Are you ok?” Fluttershy nodded.
“Stop ignoring me,” Twilight was still somewhat mad because this mare didn’t apologize to her.
“Oh, you’re still here? You can go now, please don’t be reserved and continue with your day far away from here.”
Twilight was about to snap, but controlled herself, “Urrgh!” that still didn’t stopped her from voicing her frustration before leaving.
The birds came back and Blazy let out a satisfied “hmph.”
“Um, Blazy you didn’t have to be that mean to her, she wasn’t bullying me.”
“She was making you feel uncomfortable, that’s enough for me to jump in Flutters.”
“That still wasn’t right Blazy, can you please apologize to her?” Fluttershy asked with her pleading puppy dog eyes.
The more tomboyish Blazy rolled her eyes and sighed, “Alright Flutters if you think its ok, I’ll do it. Maybe I was a ‘little’ rude.”
“Let’s find her Blazy.”
Dark Blazing Heart nodded, “Ok.”
The two made their way towards the town but Fluttershy asked something unexpected, “Blazy, why is your cutiemark black now?”
The surprise made Blazing Heart trip and kiss the dirt.
“Oh my goodness, are you ok?” Fluttershy asked worried.
“Yes I’m fine Fluttershy, you just surprised me with that question.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s ok, but let me explain it to you on the way there.”
Fluttershy smiled and nodded, being oblivious of what was next to come.
The two mares were slowly making their way towards Ponyville, one of them gathering her thoughts while the other waited politely for her to be ready.
Fluttershy saw that the reasons behind the color change in Blazy’s cutiemark was a touchy subject, “Blazy, it’s ok if you don’t want to tell me about it.”
Raspy voice Blazing Heart shook her head, “No Flutters, its necessary that at least you know about this because you’re the first one, it will be a little hard to believe but just trust me on this ok?”
Fluttershy was getting a little nervous, “I… I’ll try to be open minded so, can you?”
“Alright then, let’s sit over there for a moment,” Blazy pointed at some benches, the two made their way there and got comfortable.
“Fluttershy,” she called, “I’ll be upfront with you, because I don’t know any better.” She sighed, “I’m not the pony known as Blazing Heart right now.”
Fluttershy was confused and afraid right now, “w-what do you mean? Y-you lied to me?”
Black Blazy shook her head, “I didn’t lie to you Fluttershy, because I’m not Blazing Heart.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Fluttershy was honestly lost.
“What I mean by this is that, the one talking to you right now is not Blazing Heart, it is her body but the mind is not. My name is Efreet and I’m a Spirit.” Efreet introduced herself.
“S-Spirit?”
“I’m a being almost forgotten from pony history, just a few books on Equestria had barely if any information about myself, I’m the Spirit of Fire and unfortunately my soul got mixed with this poor filly named Blazing Heart.” Efreet explained.
Efreet nodded, “but don’t worry Fluttershy, you’re important to Blazing Heart and since I witnessed her suffering along the years, I swore to protect what’s important in her fragile heart.”
Fluttershy perked up at that, “How am I important to her? we barely know each other, Miss Efreet?”
“You can keep calling me Blazy, Fluttershy. I took a liking for her name. But to answer your question, you’re basically her first real friend.” Blazy said sadly.
“Oh my goodness, what happened to her? She seems to be such a sweet pony.” Fluttershy really wanted to know what happened to Blazy.
“I can’t tell you everything about what happened; because that could make her remember a part of her past that she most probably wanted to forget. But somepony was involved with that, also there’s a certain part of her memories none of us can tap into, like something is blocking it”
“Who could do something so horrible to a little filly?” Fluttershy was tearing up.
“There are some messed up ponies out there Fluttershy, that’s a harsh truth about Equestria. Anyways, I need to tell you one last thing, there is another one inside this body, and you met her already. She has no name and was made involuntarily by Blazing Heart to avoid any extra harm. You can consider her the midpoint between us.”
Fluttershy was confused again before she put one and one together, “the one with the empty stare is another one?” Blazy nodded, “oh…”
“She’s not something you want to get involved with, she seems harmless but she has no contemplations about getting rid of anything that gets in her way, unlike me she doesn’t have the influence of Blazing Heart’s kind nature to stop her from going loose. So, if you ever meet her again try to not annoy her, she should not be any problem if you treat her with respect.” Blazy said in a serious yet calm tone.
“But how do I know if she’s the one present?”
“You see these?” Blazy asked while pointing at the ribbons on her mane. Fluttershy nodded, “These are black now because I’m present, somehow they got enhanced and now reflect who’s the one in charge, when Blazing Heart is present these become white and our cutiemark becomes a normal red heart with a flame surrounding it. But when she’s present our ribbons get a gray color and our cutiemark is half normal and half black, there’s also the fact that she speaks in a very dull voice and her eyes are like you said, empty.” Blazy explained.
“Oh, I didn’t notice the color of your ribbons changed as well. But wait, what did you meant that unlike you she is not affected by Blazy’s kindness?”
“My soul is merged with Blazing Heart’s soul, I’m being held back by her. But that’s a good thing for the greater good.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if I get free, I fear that Equestria will not last too long I can be even worse than the one with no name, I’ve been betrayed on my old days and vengeance is very much present on my thoughts. I’m able to be like this now because of the pure heart of my host, and I want to protect her and everything she holds dear. It’s weird to say this about myself but I need to be held back so nopony that doesn’t deserve it gets hurt.” Raspy Blazy had a hint of sadness on her voice.
Fluttershy put a reassuring hoof on her friend’s withers gaining her attention, “you aren’t a bad pony, I can tell that much.” She said softly with a smile.
Blazy stared at her funnily for a moment and then cracked into laughter.
“That’s not nice…” Fluttershy said.
Blazy calmed down and took a couple of deep breaths, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re really a special case Flutters, no wonder why Blazy warmed to you so fast.” With a now perfect good mood she jumped off the bench, “that was fun, let’s find that unicorn Fluttershy.”
With a nod Fluttershy got off the bench too and the two of them marched in search for Twilight again.
Without any clues they just wandered around town for a while, until they found Pinkie of course.
A loud gasp was heard, “what are you doing here sillies? We have a party to attend to!”
“No we haven’t,” Blazy said unamused.
“Yes you have silly~ you’re new in Ponyville and I’ll throw you a welcome to Ponyville party because you’re new to Ponyville and because you’re new in Ponyville you’ll have a super mega fun party made by me!” Pinkie rambled.
Blazy looked at Fluttershy with a weird expression, “hey Flutters can I be mean with this one?”
“Please forgive her Blazy, she is trying to be nice. Um… Pinkie please don’t push her too hard she doesn’t like being put into pressure, if it’s not a bother that is.” Fluttershy said.
“Oh Fluttershy, she’s your friend? And she’s shy like you?” Raspy Blazy was really considering letting ‘no name’ out at that statement made by Pinkie. “Why didn’t you say so sooner silly? Oh, you don’t know my name don’t you? But Fluttershy said my name so you probably know now, but not really because you heard it from somepony else like I did heard your name ‘Blazy,’ but I can’t be sure if that’s your name because you didn’t tell me yourself. Well then I’ll start, Hi! My name is Pinkie Pie, who are you?” Pinkie got close to Blazy with each word until their noses touched.
Dark Blazy really really really really really really really reaaaaaaaaally wanted to blaze the heck out of this annoying mare or at least punch her a ‘little’, but decided not to because that would make things with Blazing Heart and Fluttershy way too complicated. She stepped back a little, took a deep breath and prepared herself to deal with this in the most non mean way she could muster, she lifted a hoof, “a couple of things, first thing I’m not shy I just don’t like ponies being annoying around me, second thing my name is Blazing Heart it is not a pleasure to meet you Pinkie Pie, and third thing what happens if I don’t want to go to this supposed party you said you’re throwing me for being new to Ponyville?”
“But if you don’t go to the party you can’t have fun and make friends, friends are very important to ponies, even grumpy ones because they can do fun things together and they will not be grumpy anymore instead they’ll be happy and upbeat and sing songy, so so so are you coming to the party? Yes you totally want to now, do you do you do you?” hyperactive Pinkie said in her characteristic rushy way.
‘Don’t punch her, she’s a playful pony, she’s not doing it with bad intentions, you don’t want a bad reputation that could affect Blazing Heart and ruin everything, so-don’t-punch-her.’ Efreet Blazy said to herself in a thought, more to convince herself of that than anything else.
Suffice to say it wasn’t easy for her, “Hmm, how about no?”
“Pleaaaaaaase?” Pinkie begged.
“No, stop insisting already,” Blazy wasn’t going to budge.
“Please, please, pleaaaaaaaaaase?” Pinkie pressed even harder.
Fluttershy was worried about the situation; even if ‘no name’ wasn’t present she had a bad feeling about Efreet being annoyed, that and the faint dark glow that her friend’s eyes were starting to emanate didn’t help with her nerves.
“I said no! Leave me alone!” Blazy shouted.
“Oh come on! Don’t be a party pooper!” Pinkie shouted too.
‘She’s dismissing my decision like its nothing…’ Efreet Blazy was so shocked that she didn’t notice her own mood change.
Fluttershy was on edge by this situation until she noticed the slightly increase in temperature of the area, ‘w-what’s happening… why does Blazy’s mane and tail have that fiery glow?’ that rose some red flags and Fluttershy intervened when she saw some sparks coming out of Blazy’s horn.
Her eyes shrunk at the realization and jump to hold Efreet Blazy back, “Blazy stop!” she yelled but was still kind of quiet.
Efreet stopped, but something was different. The ribbons turned white and her cutiemark returned to normal, the real Blazing Heart was back. That didn’t stopped the magic in her horn from shooting in a random direction fortunately the bolt of fire flew away and didn’t hit anything in town.
“Woah, what was that? That’s the first time I see a unicorn shooting fire like that, can you do it again? Can you can you?” Pinkie asked excitedly.
The feeling wasn’t mutual, the now real Blazing Heart had a look of total terror, “I-I almost hurt somepony again…” tears pouring from her eyes freely.
Fluttershy hold her tightly, “it wasn’t you fault Blazy… you were not in control…” she whispered in her ear.
“I’m… I’m…” she tried to apologize but a memory flashed in her mind a very dark memory.
‘You’re just a monster, a monster that needs taming, a monster that will guarantee my reign over these lands for the years to come, now you’ll do as I command and my command is…’ the sound of something in flames could be heard and screaming… screams of agony, screams of death.
“I’m… a monster…” Blazy’s then pushed Fluttershy away and flame teleported somewhere.
Fluttershy heart sank, “Blazy!? Blazy!?” she looked frantically, but Blazing Heart wasn’t anywhere on sight. She stormed off in direction to her cottage, ‘she has to be there… please be there…’
Pinkie was left alone and confused, “What just happened?”
In the empty dimension Sunset was calm once again, the terror has passed for now, that didn’t take away the indisputable anger that she had for SunButt.
“I’ll kill you, no matter how long it will take me, I’ll kill you…” she muttered under her breath.
‘I’m… a monster…’ the voice snapped Sunset from her killing dreams, that was a voice she recognized even if it sounded like a more grown up version of itself.
It was the voice of her daughter, ‘How is this possible, that piece of garbage isn’t here, how can I heard… Blazy…’
‘Blazy is still suffering out there, my little filly is suffering while I’m still stuck on this Tartarus forsaken place with no way out’ she would have cried from frustration, but her eyes were dry and red from all the tears she shed hours ago.
Then she heard the sad sobs of her little Blazy, this broke Sunset’s heart even more, she desperately wanted to get out of that place, but in 12 years she accomplished nothing.
Disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness, all those negative emotions were haunting Sunset’s soul, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had a great mental control to resist the torment for all those years, but that was it, she got to her limit, the limit over her limit.
At the last second before her sanity was no more, she saw a glimpse of Blazing Heart crying in a forest, a very dark and wild forest and a manticore jumping at her.
Her eyes shrank to the size of pinpricks, followed by the most painful and angry scream anypony ever heard.
Everything that she had to put up to was released in a moment, her magic that was reduced to almost nothing by Celestia’s spell flared to life with intensity once, her outburst managed to broke the seal on her horn, but also managed to create an explosion of magic like no other.
This discharge knocked Sunset out, but what she didn’t know was that a slight crack was made in the space.
In Canterlot’s Castle Royal Gardens, Celestia was taking a walk to calm her nerves, and develop a plan of action to find her precious weapon.
‘The reports from the biggest cities aren’t encouraging in the slightest, she is not in those places, where can this mare be?’ her train of thought was interrupted by a tingle feeling on her horn.
That feeling suddenly became an unstable charge of magic that exploded throwing her backwards against a bush.
“What is the meaning of this,” she shook her head a couple of times to recover from the event. But then noticed something shocking, “I can’t feel Sunset in the empty space.” This was bad news for her, if somehow Blazing Heart recovered her memories of Sunset, not having a way to bribe her with her mother would prove to be a big problem.
‘I need to find Sunset at once!’ she thought while teleporting to the meditation chambers to go into the empty space to search for her only way to control Blazing Heart.
Meanwhile in the Everfree forest, the charred corpse of a manticore was being devoured by a pack of timberwolves.
While in the distance a white mare with gray ribbons tied to her red mane and a double colored cutiemark walked in the shadows towards an old castle.
Fluttershy flew at speeds that could put her best friend to shame; her worry for Blazing Heart was way too much. It may be her motherly instincts kicking in, but she really cared for the little mare. She didn’t want to leave her alone; it was something Fluttershy couldn’t explain.
Maybe because Blazing Heart reminded her of herself, Blazy is shy like her… well, normal Blazy is. Efreet was a little like her friend Rainbow Dash, speaks her mind out loud and can be mean sometimes.
Getting closer to her cottage she slowed down to not crash against the door, but she still rushed inside.
“Angel! Angel!” She called for her bunny friend.
Hopping into scene, Angel approached and looked at Fluttershy with surprise at how winded she was.
“Angel, is Blazy on here? Please tell me she’s here?” Fluttershy asked hopefully.
Unfortunately, Angel shook his head.
These news struck Fluttershy hard, she bolted out her cottage and back towards Ponyville. She didn’t cared how much energy she was wasting with this tremendous amount of physical effort. She just wanted to find Blazy and know if she was ok, the sore parts of her body were put aside in her mind, she also forgot about the bird’s singing for the Summer Sun Celebration that was just a few hours away from starting.
She didn’t know where to look next, she was afraid of her friend being in an unknown place. But even worse, she was afraid that “no name” could stumble upon anypony, if she was as dangerous as Efreet made her sound then Fluttershy had to find Blazy as soon as possible to avoid any hurt ponies.
Obviously she ignored the possibility of her friend being in the wild Everfree Forest. That was a thought that didn’t crossed her mind because it was obvious that nopony would go there willingly.
Hours later, it was really late in the strangely darker night, Fluttershy searched non-stop during all that time.
Rainbow Dash was flying towards town hall after Pinkie’s party when she noticed Fluttershy’s strange behavior, wondering why her friend wasn’t in the party and seemingly flying randomly over the town, she decided to ask what was going on.
“Hey Fluttershy!” Rainbow called and approached Fluttershy.
Fluttershy stopped and turned to face Rainbow, the cyan pegasus noticed the worried look on her friend, she had dry tear trails under her eyes which were a little red.
“Did something happen Flutters?” Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy was hesitant of telling Rainbow what the situation was at first, but then she thought ‘She wouldn’t let me go if I don’t tell her, and lying doesn’t seem right…’
“A really important friend is missing Rainbow, I’ve been looking for her for hours now and I still can’t find any clues of where she could be,” Fluttershy explained.
“Is your friend somepony I know?” Rainbow asked, but Fluttershy shook her head, “tell me how she looks; I’ll help you find her.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly involve you on this, besides I looked all over Ponyville already, asked some ponies and searched over the lake too. I had no luck, I have no idea where she could be, I’m so worried that something happened to Blazy,” Fluttershy said and started to sob, clearly she was worried sick about Blazing Heart’s safety.
“Woah woah, don’t start crying on me, just tell me about her so I can help you find her and don’t tell me that I can’t get involved again because you know that I’ll help you anyways. So now spill the beams and let’s find ‘Blazy’ or whatever their name is.”Rainbow stated firmly.
Fluttershy was out of options, and Rainbow was right she would help her no matter what. She was actually relieved that her friend was so insistent, she still didn’t like the possibility of Rainbow finding ‘no name’ in Blazy’s body, but Rainbow was able to handle such situation right?
With her mind made up, Fluttershy told Rainbow everything she needed to know. Omitting the details that Efreet said it was only for the two of them.
After everything was said the two separated to search again in some of the spots Fluttershy checked before, even if it was a fruitless effort they had to try.
Meanwhile the rest of the town was gathering in town hall to wait the start of the celebration.
‘Unnamed’ Blazing Heart had an uneventful walk towards the structure known as the Castle of the Two Sisters. Well uneventful for her standards, it wasn’t uneventful for all the creatures that were reduced to dust by her short temper and powerful fire magic.
She felt magic around during the entirety of her trip to the castle, she knew somepony was throwing all those obstacles in her way, clearly somepony didn’t want her to step in the castle for whatever reason, that just made her push her way harder. It wasn’t like her to do this kind of stuff, but something about the magic around her felt familiar to the magic her master wields.
You could say she felt simple “curiosity” because if this entity was planning anything, she could just dispose of it like she always does for her master. After all… that was the only purpose for her “existance.”
Crossing the old bridge, an annoying fog covered the area suddenly; she could hear whispers from a shadowy figure that she couldn’t recognize. The magic in the area was stronger, knowing that the being that picked her curiosity was close she ignored the worthless game that was going on.
Still the dark figure in the fog that resembled a unicorn wasn’t familiar to her at all. So instead of dealing with this lame trick, she destroyed part of the stone floor with a fireball, the resulting shockwave from the explosion dispersed the fog and the figure with it. This unfortunately also cut the ropes that were holding one extreme of the bridge leaving it hanging on the other side.
“Why would somepony continue with this after seeing what I did back there? Are they stupid or something?” she said in her characteristic dull voice, that didn’t make that statement any less true though.
Once inside, she saw the pedestal with the suspended Elements of Harmony, “I wonder why my master doesn’t have these in the new castle instead of this decadent place?” she spoke her mind out loud, before continuing her way towards the place she thought the magic was stronger.
Well, the magic in area of the throne room was indeed stronger; she could feel the pressure with every step closer to the throne that seemed to be empty.
A sinister giggle could be heard, “Well, well, well. What do we have here? A little mare looking in places she shouldn’t? How daring for a filly.” The voice took the form of a black alicorn mare with a flowing starry mane and tail wearing blue armor; “huh?” she looked surprised by the “filly” kneeling to her.
“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Princess of the Night or should I say Queen of the Night?” Dull Blazy said in her kneeling position.
“So, you do know who I’ am. That’s a surprise, an enjoyable one I must say. It’s good to see somepony with proper respect for royalty on this sun loving era, you may introduce yourself my little pony.” Nightmare Moon replied.
“As you wish, my name is Blazing Heart your highness; I’m just a mere servant for alicorns to use. I have been trained to obey only alicorns for almost the entirety of my life; I’ve been serving under your sister’s command during these last few years.” Blazy explained.
That last part got Nightmare’s attention, “My sister you say? Did she send you here for negotiation perhaps? Or maybe you’re a mere distraction for an ambush?” she didn’t sense anypony else.
“No majesty your sister doesn’t know about your return and I have no knowledge about any plan in the remote case you did. You can scan my mind if you doubt me I have no issues in the slightest.” Blazy offered the option to Nightmare Moon.
“You’re quite the odd character Blazing Heart; I’ll take you on that offer.” Nightmare Moon accepted the offer to inspect Blazing Heart’s mind to make sure she wasn’t lying, ‘Also if she’s been serving Celestia, then there could be something in this mind I could use to get my revenge on her.’
Blazing Heart sat on her rump, eyes closed in serene peace waiting for the spell to do its job.
Nightmare’s horn ignited and the memory reading spell was cast to get the information she wanted.
It seemed to work fine so far, Nightmare saw that Blazing Heart wasn’t sent here, it was mere curiosity for being in the area. But that wasn’t enough for her and continued with her plan to get even more information, exploring further back she could witness the crude and brutal missions her sister had sent this mare to accomplish, she was quite shocked that such amount of violence was still present in Equestria. But it wasn’t something she didn’t saw in the past, so she didn’t bother with it too much. After all she was responsible for many beheadings during the time before her banishment.
What she did find interesting was the fact that Celestia did this for at least six years according to the memories she was seeing. She also learned the age of this mare, and was surprised to know that she was only 15 years old, which meant she was 9 when Celestia started to send her to do these quests. But even more surprising was the fact that this filly had control over fire magic, something that even back then wasn’t something so common.
‘I see, it seems Celestia is abusing a rare occurrence to get rid of possible threats to her reign, not even that but she’s also disposing of ponies just because she feels like doing it using this mare. Ha! And they labeled me as evil?’ she thought before laughing loudly and evilly. “HA! HA! HA! HA!”
“I discovered something useful, but I need to indulge more into your mind for certain details. Stand still this will not hurt, much.” Nightmare said with a creepy smile.
“You’re free to do so; I’m just a tool for alicorn gains.” Blazing Heart said with her monotone voice without opening her eyes.
Nightmare didn’t need to be told twice, and casted an even stronger spell to reach deeper in Blazing’s memories, most ponies would scream in pain at such spells being casted on them due to the sharp pain magic causes on the victim’s head. Nightmare expected her to recoil in pain but not such thing happened, something she didn’t expect was not being able to do this. ‘What is the meaning of this? Why is such a barrier in her mind? Well it doesn’t matter I just need to increase the strength of the spell even more, she won’t mind even if her brain fries, after all she’s just a tool.’ She then proceeded to increase the power of the spell ignoring Blazing Heart’s safety… or her own.
Because sometimes the walls of the mind are there to protect outsiders instead of the hosts, Nightmare learned this the hard way when she saw the memories of something that was not normal.
It was destruction, destruction and corpses everywhere, an ancient looking city on flaming ruins and a single figure looking at the chaos from a hill. Nightmare couldn’t make any features of the pony on the hill because the hood of the robe casted a pitch black shadow over the face. Suddenly everything went into total darkness and a pair of red eyes that had a flaming glow behind them, those eyes were digging in her soul. For the first time in over a millennia Nightmare Moon felt uneasy and threatened, moments later she felt an incredible pressure and she was violently ejected from Blazing Heart’s mind cancelling the spell and leaving her quite shaken.
“What happened your highness? Why did the spell cut out so suddenly?” Blazing Heart asked with her unemotional voice, after all it wasn’t in her to care about others she was just curious.
Nightmare just stared at her cautiously, ‘this mare is not normal, there’s something powerful inside her. I’ll have to be careful with her.’
“Somepony has gone through the border of the forest where I put a sensory spell; there are six of them to be specific. Do I go after them?” Blazing Heart asked.
“No, I have some ideas of what to do with them; you stay here and guard the throne room.” Nightmare ordered.
“As you wish highness.” Blazing Heart kneeled in respect.
Fluttershy followed Twilight along with her friends into the Everfree, she wanted to keep searching for Blazy but the menace of Nightmare Moon was over them and they decided to stop her.
“Come on Fluttershy, I know you are worried about your new friend, but we need to kick Nightmare’s flank if we want to see the sun tomorrow.” Rainbow said while airborne.
“I know, but I can’t help it. She asked for my help but I wasn’t able to, I feel terrible.” Fluttershy said in a depressing tone.
“Don’t worry Fluttershy, after we deal with Nightmare Moon I’ll help you find your friend too. I need to apologize to her, she was defending you and I took it personal, I’m sorry.” Twilight said to Fluttershy apologetically.
Fluttershy smiled some at that, and the six mares went deeper into the forest, without noticing the strange blue mist following them.
Meanwhile in Canterlot Castle, the guards got reports from the squad sent to Poniville that the being known as Nightmare Moon returned.
When they gave the information to Princess Celestia, she replied with, “I have no time to waste with such rubbish; I have more important matters to attend to. Just send more guards, Twilight will eventually come to a solution for this situation, so don’t bother telling me anything else about this topic unless a relevant town is involved.”
The guards just could watch as their Princess walked away irritated by the interruption of whatever she was doing at the moment. They didn’t dare to contradict her though, if she was so sure that they could overcome this situation they could just believe in their ruler and do as she said.
‘Luna, why do you have to be a nuisance when I’m so busy? You’ve always been such a pain in the flank when you didn’t got what you wanted, just like a spoiled filly, I hope you get humiliated and grow up a little.’ This were Celestia’s thought at the matter. But she immediately went into her search for Sunset Shimmer again; she didn’t have the time in her hooves to waste it in her childish sister.
The six mares that got together to stop Nightmare Moon were stepping deep into the Everfree Forest, some of them knew a little about the place, others just heard rumors, but none of them expected the forest to be in such a condition.
All around them were patches of charred grass, trees burned to the root, and a strange aura of dead during the trip.
“I have read about this place a couple of times, so I know about its chaotic nature, but I didn’t expect it to be this chaotic, I wonder what happened here,” Twilight said while seeing the whole scenery.
Fluttershy got bad vibes from this situation, ‘this couldn’t have been Blazy, right?’ she thought with worry on her mind, this seemed like something ‘unnamed Blazy’ would do, however she was scared because that meant Blazy teleported to the Everfree when she got upset various hours ago, also this practically screamed ‘unnamed’ was in control and that meant danger for them. But Fluttershy was in denial and hoped none of this happened because Blazy was in the area.
But what Applejack said next was something she was afraid of.
“ ‘Ah can’t be sure, but tis’ here” she pointed at the whole burned area, “is pretty darn recent, ‘Ah can tell by the smell and some parts are still warm.”
“So, whatever the hay happened here occurred like today or something? That’s what you’re saying?” Rainbow asked.
“Pretty much, ‘Ah could bet mah hat that ‘tis even happened a few hours ago.” Applejack told them her assumption.
“Oooooh, and what if Fluttershy’s friend did this? She did this very weird thingy with her horn and threw a fireball from it, I never saw a unicorn throwing fire from their horn before, it was so ‘fuuuosh’ and ‘fiiiuum’ and then ‘boooooom!’ I wanted her to do it again but she exploded and now I don’t know where she is, but maybe she’s here in the creepy forest being a hermit or something like that and…” Pinkie rambled and rambled, you know… stuff.
Everypony looked weirdly at her, except for Fluttershy who was beyond worried at this point.
Twilight perked up at a certain part of what Pinkie said, “Wait, did you just said that she threw a fireball from her horn? That can’t be possible, unicorns can ignite things with magic but we can’t cast actual fire using magic, maybe you just mistook a red magic blast with a fireball.” Twilight explained to the group.
“No, no! It was fire, I’m pretty sure of it. It set bushes on fire and left this smoke trail behind, it was crazy! Fluttershy knows her better and she was there to see it too, right Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked the non present Fluttershy, “huh? Where did she go?”
Fluttershy herself didn’t want anything to do with that and chose to shy away from the group; unfortunately she didn’t make it unnoticed.
“Where are you going Flutters?” Rainbow surprised the fleeing butter colored pegasus letting out a quiet “Eep” in surprise.
“Well? Where were you going?” Rainbow pushed.
“Em… well…” Fluttershy was backing away slowly while Rainbow followed her.
The rest of the group caught up with them.
“Fluttershy! Answer me! Why-did-you-try-to-escape!?” Rainbow pushed even more.
Fluttershy sat down and tears started to appear in the corner of her eyes.
“Rainbow cut it out!” Applejack said angrily.
Twilight meanwhile felt something weird, it was magic she was never able to fell before, it certainly wasn’t Nightmare’s magic it was something ‘warmer’ she looked around to see if anything was there, but she found nothing and soon after the feeling went away, ‘what was that magic? It was… saddening for some reason.’ She thought.
“Argh! Alright, I’m sorry Fluttershy I didn’t meant to be mean with you, but you’re hiding something from us. When you told me about this friend of yours, something wasn’t right, I let that one slide because you were way too sad, but I know you didn’t told me everything,” Rainbow stated.
“Fluttershy, we are your friends, you can trust us,” she said sincerely.
“Only if yer okay with it,” Applejack added.
Fluttershy thought about it, she didn’t want to tell them that Blazy was possessed by a Spirit or that she could be dangerous because an alter ego was in control, they couldn’t possibly understand something like that and just classify her friend as a crazy pony.
But she felt deep in her heart that telling them would be the best option, because in the remote case that Blazy was indeed on the Everfree, them knowing about the danger could potentially avoid any possible accident due to not knowing.
Making up her mind, Fluttershy gathered the courage to tell her friends about Efreet and Unnamed. But she wasn’t aware of somepony else eavesdropping at that moment.
Inside the castle of the two sisters, ‘Unnamed’ Blazing Heart wasn’t sure of what happened a few moments ago, she felt a sudden rush of emotions that she didn’t knew she had. The most prominent was… worry… she had no idea of why she was worried, or how she even knew it was worry, it was the first time she felt anything at all, but it was just so familiar to her.
“What is happening to me? Why am I feeling like this? Why do I know that these sensations are feelings?” She lifted a hoof to her forehead; it was very stressful for her, her head hurt a lot.
At that moment, various memories from the past started flowing in her mind, all those quests she had done for her master, all those beings she killed in cold blood because of an order, every single expression of fear, despair and hate all of them showed her before, while and after she had done the only task she existed for.
“Why am I remembering all of this? Why does it even matter? What’s the significance behind this entire situation? Why am I… doubting my master…?” with every memory passing through her brain she felt more and more in doubt about what she has been doing for the past six years, every memory made her question her master’s motives for ordering her such things, she didn’t cared about it in the past but now she was, and she didn’t know why.
‘I love you too my angel…’ the voice she heard… her eyes widened at their maximum capacity, she felt like something in her head wanted to pop out of it, the headache was unbearable, the corners of her eyes started to tear up.
“W-what is t-this!?” Blazy screamed loudly, but then she frowned angrily and ignited her horn, suddenly the something felt like it cracked, but also relieved her of the incredible pain, her expression softened going back to her stoic and dull look, and she wasn’t able to remember what just occurred, “what… was I doing? Why are my eyes pouring tears?” she asked to nopony while wiping the tears away with her hoof.
Nightmare Moon kept on following the mares after hearing about the ancient fire spirit Efreet, this was the perfect chance to get her revenge on Celestia, she just needed to find a way to make Blazing Heart her own servant.
But that could wait, now she needed to mess with these mares, something she didn’t expect was the path of destruction left by Blazing Heart ruined every trap Nightmare prepared.
Basically the group of mares made it safely to the castle doors, so she opted for waiting inside; surely Blazing Heart would enjoy having a task at hoof offered by her queen nonetheless. After deciding that, she returned to the throne room.
Blazy turned to welcome her temporal master Nightmare Moon, upon seeing her she kneeled, “Welcome back your highness.”
“My loyal subject, your queen appreciates your devotion, but we have intruders inside my castle.” Nightmare said.
“Is that the group that entered the Everfree? Majesty.” Blazy inquired.
“Indeed, it appears that your trip here has ruined most of my previous plans, do you understand what you have to do, Blazing Heart?” Nightmare asked, while secretly smirking.
Blazy nodded, “of course your highness, may I ask if I’ am to greet them at the entrance?”
“No, hide in the shadows, your queen has a better way to introduce yourself to our guests.”
Blazy did as she was said, and this surprised Nightmare, as soon as she was out of view Blazing Heart presence almost disappeared. Nightmare knew this was because of Celestia; this mare was trained to be an assassin a killing machine, how did she managed to do it without releasing the ferocious spirit of fire was beyond her.
‘Efreet… I remember her, her previous reincarnation was a little… enthusiastic, her host openly accepted the spirit and the two merged into an energetic mare, however I found a relatable companion on her. I could call her a friend even, but… what Celestia did to her… we are lucky and hopeful that she does not remember that dreadful day,’ Nightmare thought, even if corrupted she was able to feel to some extent, she wasn’t a soulless being.
She then became mist and went to the room where the Elements of Harmony were, the group of mares was most probably in there finding a way to woke them again and use them on her.
Blazing Heart saw Nightmare Moon leave, she also felt a slight discomfort for some reason.
Twilight just told her new friends to step outside to focus in re-activating the Elements of Harmony; she closed her eyes in concentration not noticing the blue starry mist surrounding the Elements end forming a mini tornado, upon noticing she jumped on it and getting teleported to the decadent throne room.
Blazing Heart saw the purple unicorn from the shadows, but even when she never saw that mare before, there was something… familiar about her.
She saw their confrontation, how the two charged at each other and how the unicorn teleported at the last second to where the Elements stood in front of the throne, she used her magic on the Elements the stones resonated for a moment but nothing happened, the stones lost their shine and returned to normal.
The unicorn stepped back and Nightmare Moon teleported to the stones’ location and smashed them with a stomp of her hooves not only shattering the stones but also the hopes of that mare.
“You little foal, you thought you could defeat me!? Now you’ll never see your princess or your sun, the night will last. Forever! HAHAHAHA!” Nightmare exclaimed.
The mare was slightly trembling in fear, when new voices were heard.
When the mares entered the room, Blazing Heart was taken aback by one of them; it was that mare from earlier in the day, the one that tried to give her orders, the one that cared for her…
The room fell silent, like something was meant to happen but it didn’t.
“What? Why?” the purple unicorn asked to nopony while having confusion on her features.
“Twilight? What’s wrong?” the orange earth pony mare with a Stetson was seemingly worried.
“T-the elements, they didn’t resonate with us… why?”
“What do you mean?” the cyan rainbow maned pegasi asked.
As on cue, a quiet chuckle was heard, Nightmare Moon was relaxed and just looked to her side without turning her head. The other mares were on total alert except for Fluttershy, she… recognized that voice.
She looked everywhere in the room until her vision crossed a certain dark corner from which a white figure with a red maned styled in twin tails emerged from it.
“Let me answer your question, you ignorant.” “Unnamed” Blazing heart said, getting the attention of the ponies in the room.
“Why are you here? This place is dangerous!” Twilight warned the other mare not getting what was going on.
“Hey Fluttershy isn’t that your grumpy fire shooting friend?” Pinkie asked.
“Wait, are you saying that filly is…” Rainbow was starting her sentence when Fluttershy rushed towards the “filly.”
Blazing Heart was about to burn this reckless mare, but deep inside something stopped her; she wasn’t sure why this mare had such an effect on her. But while she was questioning her inner motives the yellow pegasi hugged her.
“Blazy! Oh… I’m so glad that you’re ok… I w-was so worried…” Fluttershy said between sobs quietly.
While the group for the most part were relieved that the pony was Fluttershy’s friend, Rainbow watched the two warily, something about “Blazy” rubs her the wrong way.
That’s when she remembered what Fluttershy told them.
‘You can tell who’s in control by looking at her ribbons, the one that is dangerous has gray ribbons,’ then she looked at the ribbons on that mare’s mane, they were gray.
“Fluttershy, watch-“ she tried to tell her friend, but a fireball passed inches away of her face, if she didn’t reacted by backing away she would have been severely injured by that thing.
This also shocked the rest, especially Twilight, she was proven wrong. Fire magic did exist and this mare use it to try and hurt one of her new friends.
“Can you unhoof me please? It is rather uncomfortable to be this way,” Dull Blazy asked Fluttershy, still wasn’t in her to hurt this pony for some mysterious reason, Fluttershy let go and also noticed who was the one in control.
Nightmare noticed this reluctance as well. If this reincarnation of Efreet was brainwashed and trained to be a killing machine, why would she not dispose of that mare touching her. It was intriguing.
“My beloved subjects let me present to you to my most loyal servant, Equestria’s secret extermination weapon, Miss Blazing Heart.” Nightmare said while motioning towards Blazing Heart to knell.
Being free to move again Blazy knelled to greet their guests, “I’m Blazing Heart it’s a pleasure to meet you all, and a shame that this will not last for longer.”
Some of them had questions, but before being able to say anything Blazy continued, “But at the very least I will tell you,” she pointed at Twilight, “why the Elements of Harmony aren’t resonating with your group whatsoever.”
Twilight perked up at that, “do you know the reason why?”
“Indeed, because you see, the Elements are very selective artifacts the wielders need to have the traits of all six of them and their primary quality has to be the one the Element itself represents. A pony cannot be selected if even one of the traits is missing in their personality; your little explanation earlier has proven this point, every single one of you posses one of the traits but not the others.” Blazy explained.
She side looked at Fluttershy for a moment, that weird sensation appeared again; somehow she knew that at least this mare would be an Element bearer.
Fluttershy was confused as to why “unnamed” was acting so ‘nice’ with her, she wasn’t being hostile to her, or showed any intention of hurting her; she was polite even when she asked her to let go.
‘This doesn’t resemble what Efreet said about her,’ she thought.
“Umm…” Fluttershy stuttered while trying to speak with her, she wasn’t sure what to say.
Without looking at her Blazing Heart said, “Do not be afraid Fluttershy, I will not hurt you.” Surprising the shy pegasus and even herself, ‘Unnamed’ didn’t know Fluttershy’s name, but it popped up in her mind just now.
The headache she was feeling now was almost as bad as the one she had earlier that night.
“Blazing Heart, dispose of them at once, it’s an order from your queen,” Nightmare ordered.
Her mind was in conflict, she had to obey, but she also had to not hurt Fluttershy.
The others saw the conflicted mare, grabbing her head in pain.
“What’s up with her?” Rainbow asked.
“She seems to be having an internal fight, you heard her too girls, she doesn’t want to hurt Fluttershy, but Nightmare’s order conflicts with that, but I agree that something odd is up with that mare,” Twilight gave her thoughts.
“Didn’t you hear your queen, Blazing Heart? Kill them all right now!” Nightmare Moon was getting impatient.
‘You can only obey Alicorns Blazing Heart, remember who made you the way you are, who took care of you and who gave you a purpose.’These words resonated on her mind; her master told her that sentence after her first quest. After what she was manipulated to do, after staining her hooves with the blood of that couple a few years ago, not knowing that those ponies had a daughter…
“If you aren’t capable of following the simplest of commands then allow me,” Nightmare said that and then caught Fluttershy in her magic.
“Hey, leave her alone!” Rainbow said while rushing to help Fluttershy.
But the dark mist blocked her vision disorientating her and leaving her vulnerable.
“Watch out!” Twilight warned when she saw Nightmare throw Fluttershy towards Rainbow but it was futile, Rainbow couldn’t see where she was and the mist was also cutting her breathing.
At the very last moment Fluttershy disappeared in flames, also flames erupted from inside the mist dissipating it.
Twilight and the rest saw Rainbow slowly descending to the floor inside a shield made of fire after touching the ground, the flames die out leaving a coughing Rainbow Dash.
Nightmare Moon saw it too and quickly turned to see the only being capable of such magic prowess.
What she saw wasn’t good, the dead look and dull expression were no more in Blazing Hearts features, and instead a noticeable angry scowl replaced them.
Meanwhile in the empty void, Sunset was forcefully awakened by a magical signal.
She looked frantically her surroundings, but found nothing.
“What was that?” she asked to the void, “wait, how am I able to feel magical signals again?”
She then noticed that the void wasn’t so empty anymore, she was able to feel the wind in her fur slightly, and the sound of the birds singing.
She was still suspicious, “what if this is Sunbutt’s doing?” she thought about the possibility for a moment, “no, she can’t create wind and this is not an illusion. Hmm, what if…” a thought came to her and tried it out.
Sunset concentrated like she used to do when she learned how to use her magic, at first nothing came out but shortly after sparks came out of her horn and finally it came to life, her cyan magic surrounded her horn once again.
She slowly opened her eyes, her serene expression changed to a one full of glee. “hehe,” she started chuckling, “HAHAHAHA!” and ended in a howl of laughter while fresh tears fell down her cheeks.
After some minutes she let all that out followed by a satisfied sigh, “well, let’s give this a try,” she concentrated once more and suddenly she poofed out of the void.
She appeared in a desolated place, rails where to her side and a city at the distance, a city she recognized.
Manehattan.
She blinked a couple of times to make sure this was real, she looked around and everything seemed to be real, even the pain she felt when she tried to walk after 12 years of floating in an empty space and ended up faceplanted on the dirt.
But this also was reassuring, this was real, she was back in Equestria!
Another howl of laughter didn’t make itself wait, “HAHAHAHA! I’m back Sunbitch!” she shouted at the wind and started to make her way towards the city.
“I can still swear! Hurray!”
Let’s just say that she wasn’t in her right mind right now.
Fluttershy had her eyes shut out of fear; she didn’t want to see what was going to happen when Nightmare Moon caught her. But she was confused when her hooves were touching the floor once again, she also felt something warm. Very slowly she opened her eyes to take a peek of what was going on, she found herself looking at the creamy white coat of Blazing Heart emanating a slightly red fiery aura.
But she also noticed this wasn’t ‘unnamed’ present the black cutie mark gave that away.
“Are you ok, Fluttershy? You are not injured are you?” the raspy voice of Efreet relaxed the shy pegasus.
“Yes Blazy, I’m fine thanks to you. Thank you” Fluttershy said with a happy smile.
Efreet only nodded and turned to see a being from her past, “Long time no see, Luna.” She said surprising everypony in the room. “I know you’re the excitable one of the two sisters, but you didn’t have to throw my little friend like that, that wasn’t nice Luna.”
She wasn’t being aggressive or mean, the way she said that was more of a disappointed friend.
“What? How did you? Did you…” Nightmare tried to say.
“Oh yes, I remember now Luna. I remember the old days with you, Celly and her…” Blazy said the last word in a sadder note, “I see you ended up succumbing to jealously, I don’t get why though, and you know what she did, why would you feel jealous of her?”
The other suddenly saw Nightmare Moon having a sympathetic expression, something they didn’t know she was able to have.
“It wasn’t because jealously, my friend. It was because of what she did to you that I fell to the dark side, I couldn’t tolerate how things ended,” any evil intention Nightmare Moon had, vanished from her voice which sounded softer than before.
“You didn’t have to do this for me you know? I was just living an ephemeral existence, passing through if you will. It was my fault she died I shouldn’t have been involved with her to begin with.” Blazy looked upset.
“No! It was our fault! We couldn’t protect you from our sister, We were useless!” Tears came from Nightmare’s eyes, and the dark mist started to leave her body, bit by bit revealing a blue mare with darker mane and the night sky on it, a black spot on her flanks with a crescent moon was her cutie mark.
“What? Nightmare Moon was Princess Celestia’s sister!?” Twilight shouted.
“That is right, little pony. I’ am Princess Luna, monarch of the moon and co-ruler of Equestria, but in our most sincere opinion we don’t think we deserve to rule such a tainted kingdom, it should disappear.” Luna said grimly.
Blazing Heart got closer and hugged the crying mare, “Don’t ruin our reunion with dark thoughts, Luna. Even with such a ruler in the power, Equestria managed to get relatively peaceful, but I agree that a change in the ruling is on need.”
“Excuse us… su-“
“Is Blazy now,” Blazy cut out.
Luna let out a giggle, “Right, excuse us Blazy, that would take some time to get used to, I apologize in advance for that.”
“You always have been such a crybaby, I hope I don’t have to foalsit you again,” Blazing Heart joked.
Luna deadpanned but smiled nonetheless, “very funny, dear sister. We see you didn’t lose your peculiar sense of humor, your friendship with Discord has to be the main reason you were like that. We should have teach you some more refined mannerisms.”
“Yeah, no chances of that happening, your refined ways were too boring for me a thousand years ago, and are still boring nowadays.”
“What is going on?” Rainbow asked.
“A friends’ reunion,” Fluttershy said to the group happily.
Looking at the shards of the elements Blazy said, “Should we awake those in a weaker form so we can have them in case of emergency?”
“That would be appropriate,” with that Luna nodded.
The two of them used their magic on the shards; these shined brightly, got together and formed five necklaces and one crown.
The gems of the jewelry resembled those of the six mares in the room; every piece went to their matching pony.
“Keep these safe, they are not at full power but have enough in case of any emergency, you six will be the defenders of Equestria.” Blazy told them.
“Why are you doing all of this? Why us? You said we didn’t have what is needed to awake them,” Twilight asked.
“You have, just not strong enough, yes the Elements require you to have qualities representing all six of them, but the only way to have them is to forge bonds with others, basically you need to have great friends to achieve the requirements, until then you will have access to the weaker versions of the Elements. Also it wasn’t me the one who told you that, but enough of it. You don’t have to worry, I’ll help you if you’re in need of assistance, but first I should look for a house in Ponyville.”
“You’re staying with me,” Fluttershy said suddenly.
“I don’t want to intrude Flutters.”
“You’re staying with me, and that’s final,” Fluttershy with seriousness but softness as well.
Blazy looked at the others, Rainbow shrugged the others didn’t know what just happened.
“Anyways… what are you planning on doing? Luna,” Blazy tried to change the topic.
“We would like to stay close to you, my friend. And to achieve that we are going to restore this castle,” Luna told them her plan.
“I should have a low profile until everything is done, I’ll come whenever I feel is safe to do so,” Blazy commented.
“That would be wise of you,” Luna said then turned to the group, “Listen clearly, my sister should not by any chance know that Blazing Heart is on Ponyville. I made myself clear?”
Everypony nodded, Fluttershy was the first one to do so. She deduced the Princess did something to Blazy and that’s why she didn’t want to see her.
Twilight didn’t catch on that though, “why? From what I saw so far, Blazing Heart also knows Princess Celestia, why can’t she know an old friend is over here?”
“Because I don’t want to, so please respect my decision, I deposit my trust on you girls,” Blazy asked solemnly.
“I also want to ask you the same favor, please?” Fluttershy added to the begging.
Twilight after some moments gave up, “alright, I will not tell the Princess that Blazing Heart is on Ponyville, but I want to know why at some point.”
Luna wanted to say something but Blazy put a hoof in front of her to stop her, “Fair enough, after I settle down I’ll you tell what happened between us.”
With that said, everypony made their way home; Luna flew to Canterlot to talk with her sister about living in the old castle after a restoration. Twilight fought the temptation to write Princess about Blazing Heart after receiving an order to stay in Ponyville and send her the lessons about friendship she learns with the time.
Blazing Heart teleported with Fluttershy to her cottage to make the proper arrangements, but something was bothering her, something familiar.
Thinking that it would be better to think about it after a good night of sleep, she went to rest in the couch. Fluttershy offered her bed but Blazy refused and this time she was firm, leaving the pegasus with no options but to accept this.
“Good night Blazy,” Fluttershy said from the corner of the living room.
Darkness, complete darkness was the only thing in Blazing Heart’s mind during her sleep. Or it used to be that way for many years, something changed inside her head, she felt something warm and homely, for the first time in so many years she was dreaming.
She found herself in a flowery field, covered by a clean and starry night sky the moon casting a soothing light that relaxed her, she felt at peace here, she felt safe, she felt… free.
But even if this was a dream and she was indeed dreaming, Blazing Heart didn’t know this simple fact, she just sat there for a moment letting the nice breeze to go through her fur and mane, drinking it all in and then slowly open her eyes, “this is a beautiful place, I would like to know where it is, it doesn’t look like the clearing that is near Fluttershy’s house,” she said in her sweet voice, she should be panicking, she didn’t know where she was and her last memory was being attacked by a monster in a scary forest.
But she wasn’t, she just felt at complete peace. What could this mean? She had no idea. That was until another being made act of presence.
“I appreciate your compliment over my work, my friend,” the alicorn of the night said while descending from the moon.
Blazing Heart stared in awe as the alicorn descended with the light of moon beautifying her figure. But what she said confused her; she just called her, ‘friend’? Why would this pony who she has never met, call her ‘friend’?
With that same confusion she mustered the courage to ask, “Who are you?”
Now was Luna’s turn to be confused, she tilted her head to the side, “what do you mean, Blazy? You already know who I ‘am.”
“No I don’t, I never meet you before miss,” Blazy said with innocence.
This got Luna’s attention, her friend shouldn’t be this vulnerable… by now the one she knew would be annoying her, but that wasn’t the case right now, and instead she got to meet a pure looking Blazing Heart. This was the total opposite of the overconfident, rude and downright blasphemous being that was her old friend.
With some silly curiosity powering her actions, Luna played along just make sure this wasn’t a joke, “Oh, I’m sorry little one, I must have confused you by the likes of my friend, your resemblance with her is incredible.”
“That’s ok, I hope you’re able to find your friend miss, I want to look for mine too, but I don’t know where I ‘am. Do you know where this is, miss...”
“Forgive my lack of manners, I’ve been away for quite a while, I ‘am Princess Luna co-ruler of Equestria and the one who brings the night to our lands and protects ponies from nightmares in their sleep,” Luna introduced herself holding her head high with pride.
The sound of giggling took her by surprise, looking down Luna saw Blazy giggling into her hoof in a cute manner, “Did I say something entertaining?”
“You’re funny, miss Luna,” the amused young mare said.
Luna smiled warmly at this, there was no way this adorable mare would be her friend, but she made sure to enter her friend’s dreamscape, why would she find a different pony? Did she mistook this one with her friend’s? No, there was no way that this was a mistake, after all she made this dream to break the seal on her mind, the magic of her sister was present in Blazy’s mind making it impossible for her to experience dreams, so she had to break through the spell, even if it was her sister’s magic, such spell wasn’t a problem for her to at least open the way for Blazy to have dreams again.
Luna cleared her throat, “well, going back to your question my little pony, this is not a real location on Equestria, is a land made on your mind, you’re currently sleeping right now.”
“So, am I dreaming?” Luna nodded as a response; Blazy tapped her chin with a hoof deep in thought while looking around, “hmm, I didn’t know I could do that… I normally don’t see anything other than my friend when I sleep.”
“The reason for that is…” Luna was about to tell her the reason why she wasn’t able to dream.
“Luna stop, you’ll scare her!” another Blazing Heart appeared.
Luna stared confused, but the pure one hugged to new one which looked slightly older, taller and had longer bangs of mane almost covering one of her eyes.
“Blazy, can you go play for a bit? I need to talk with Luna alone for a moment,” the older one asked to the young one in a soothing voice.
The younger one nodded happily and went away to look for something to do, Luna got the hint and used her magic to create some little animals to make young Blazing Heart company.
The older Blazy watched her younger clone for a moment before focusing on Luna, “I appreciate what you tried to do Luna, I really do. But please don’t tell her.”
Luna still didn’t know what to make of the situation, but came to the conclusion that this one was the Blazing Heart she wanted to see.
“Why not? And why do you look like that?” she asked curiously.
“If you do, she’ll remember what Celestia did to her, I will not let that happen Luna. Blazy deserves a peaceful life after everything she went through, as for why do I look like this? Well, this is what Blazy thought I would look like; even if she couldn’t dream, I was able to communicate with her; I let her know that she wasn’t alone in that darkness, I tried my best to cheer her up and one day she made this form for me so she wouldn’t feel alone.” Efreet closed her eyes in deep thought for a moment.
Luna looked at the young mare that was playing with the animals with a sad expression, “I’m sorry, is her mind stable?”
“Surprisingly yes, she has a strong mind for her personality, and don’t be sorry Luna, you didn’t know. By the way, how did your sister take your return?” Efreet asked casually.
Luna frowned, “she didn’t care in the slightest, she tried to fake a smile and make it look like everything was fine, but I know when she lies.”
“What about your plan to restore the old castle? Did she suspect something?”
Luna tapped her chin with a hoof a few times, “I don’t think she suspects anything, and I believe she was actually happy for me to go away as soon as possible.”
“Did she mention Blazy?”
“No, she did not mention anything to me personally, but she is searching for you in all Equestria my friend, it’s just a matter of time before she gets to Ponyville.”
“I know, but we need time, I need to totally remove the seal Blazy has on her mind, thanks to you I managed to recover my memories from before I even meet you, but hers are still blocked.”
“I see, I will assist you in any way I can but now I must return to my obligations,” Luna then remembered something, “Oh, I almost forgot, I noticed something else about Celestia.”
“What is it?”
“She also seems to be looking for somepony else besides you.” This response made Efreet to look at her with a raised brow.
“Celestia is looking for somepony else, you say? That’s strange, who could that pony be?”
“I don’t know, but there has to be a reason for my sister to be looking for another pony so desperately,” Luna faced the moon and opened her wings, she looked back to her friend, “maybe the answer is on your host’s memories.” She said while flapping her wings to get airborne.
Efreet considered the possibility but put it aside for now, “well, we can always figure that out, for now its better if we let Blazy rest with a happy dream.”
Luna smiled, “rest assured my friend, she will have peaceful dreams from now on. I will make sure of it.” She said before leaving the dream.
Efreet waved good bye to her until she was out of view. Then with a satisfied sigh she turned and went to see how Blazy was doing before leaving too.
The next morning.
Blazing Heart was sleeping soundly, until the sun decided to be a meanie and struck her in the eyes, making her wake up.
She groaned a little and tried to get back to sleep covering her face with the bed sheets, but to her dismay these were translucent white, not the best color to stop light from entering your eyes.
Giving up to her destiny, Blazing Heart opened her eyes and stretched the soreness away, she inspected her surroundings. She quite expected to wake up in that forest from last night, but she didn’t; instead she woke up in a comfortable bed, well that explains the sheets.
She heard soft snoring close to her, rubbing her eyes with a hoof; she focused to see with more clarity.
“Fluttershy?” Blazy saw her friend sleeping with her head resting at the edge of the bed.
The yellow pegasus blinked lazily a few times and yawned softly.
“Good morning, Blazy. Did you sleep well?” Fluttershy asked with a warm smile.
“I did, but how did I get here?” Blazy asked with confusion.
Now it was Fluttershy’s turn to be confused, “hmm? We came here after what happened in the Everfree Forest…”
Blazy just got even more confused, “we did? I just remember a scary forest and then… nothing.”
“Oh…” Fluttershy didn’t know what to do, ‘oh my goodness, this is normal Blazy, it’s hard to know without her wearing her ribbons.’
Blazing Heart tilted her head to the side in a cute way, “don’t worry Fluttershy, maybe it just something that I will remember later, like you said it’s no use to push it.”
Fluttershy was glad that she didn’t push the topic further, “y-yes,” she said meekly, “how does breakfast sound?”
The little grumble from Blazy’s belly replied for her, “breakfast sounds nice…” she said with a blush.
Fluttershy petted her out of instinct, “alright, I’ll go make it, you can rest a little bit more if you want.”
Blazy appreciated the petting, “I want to help.”
“Oh no… that would be rude of me, just relax ok?”
But Blazy wasn’t going to just accept that, she used the puppy eyes with quivering lips. It was a critical hit at Fluttershy’s d’aww o meter.
She couldn’t resist the cuteness and gave up, “alright Blazy, can you help me feed the animals while I make breakfast?”
Blazy nodded excitedly, “leave it to me Fluttershy!” with that she jumped out of bed and bounced happily outside.
The sight of the excited mare warmed Fluttershy’s heart; she followed her outside to explain what she had to do before going inside and start with breakfast.
Fluttershy was a little worried about Blazy, so she took peeks outside through a window to check on her, but the animals were behaving and Angel was helping her if she got confused.
The day couldn’t have started in a better note.
Spike was going through the library picking up the all the notes that were dispersed on the floor.
“Twi, do you really need all these notes?” he asked while dodging a ball of paper that Twilight tossed behind her from the desk.
“Not now Spike, I need to prepare for when I go get all the information I need from that mare, I want an explanation to so many things! Who she really is? Why does she know so much about the Elements of Harmony? How did she knew who Nightmare Moon was? And so many more,” Twilight rambled from the desk while scribbling notes and questions in different order.
Spike rolled his eyes; he knew for experience that speaking with Twilight when she’s like that was a lost cause; then another discarded note hit him in the face.
Sunset paced through the streets of Manehattan after sleeping on a bench for the night. She got used to her body again, but she needed to recover her strength. Fortunately for her, even if Celestia erased any trace of her existence like she said she would do, the bank still had that account she made with Blazy’s name, back in the day she deposited three hundred bits on that account for Blazy’s education, she took the money out which raised to three hundred and sixty due to interest for twelve years.
She bought some simple looking saddlebags a few other articles, right now she stopped at a coffee shop to get something on her belly.
That was when she noticed something on the corner of her eye, a unicorn royal guard stallion with a creamy white coat, and blue mane and tail could be seen from the window.
‘It seems this is my lucky day, long time no see honey... fufufu~’ Sunset thought while the most devious smile ever crossed her face.
Sunset wanted no more than to get revenge on that stallion, but she needed to be careful, she couldn’t just do it in plain sight, besides for some strange reason the guard activity has multiplied since the day before. There was no mistake, Sunbutt already knew she escaped the void in which she was imprisoned and send her guard to look for her. But there is a spell for almost everything and fortunately she knew the perfect spell for the occasion, she paid for her breakfast and went outside carefully to not attract the attention of any guard, she also was looking for an alleyway to cast the illusion spell on herself to alter her appearance.
Having found a deserted one, she casted the spell changing her mane and tail to a single tone of blue, her coat to white and her cutie mark changed from a sun to a moon, she also tied her mane into a ponytail.
With her preparations done, she started following her target. But she also wanted some information so she had to play it cool for now.
“Excuse me, guard?”
The guard turned, “is there something you need, Miss?”
Sunset mentally threw a hoof on the air victoriously, ‘it seems I fooled him, well he wasn’t too bright before either…’ but that feeling fade away rather quickly, ‘I suppose I can’t brag too much about it, since I fell for this guy. Blazy… forgive me for not giving you a good father.’
Making an effort to not show her current emotions, Sunset faked a smile, “I was wondering why are there so many guards today, did something happen?”
“Princess Celestia has demanded for the capture of a dangerous criminal who escaped banishment, the amount of guards has been increased in order for the search to go swiftly. We are asking the citizen for help if they have seeing this criminal.”
After hearing the explanation, she mentally cursed Sunbutt for spreading such bull about her, “how does the criminal look?”
The guard unrolled a scroll with a picture and showed it to her, “this is the mare that escaped, have you seen her around Miss?”
Sunset just took a glance to confirm that it was a picture of her, “what did this mare do to be banished? It had to be very serious for the Princess to go to such extent.”
But the guard hesitated, “My apologies, but we aren’t allowed to spread that information Miss.”
Sunset was disappointed, but that will change soon, “oh, I see. But I think I saw this mare before.”
“Really? Where did you saw her Miss?”
Sunset pointed at the abandoned alleyway, “Over there, she was acting a little strange; I didn’t had the courage to follow her.”
“You made the right choice, who knows what that criminal would’ve done to you, Miss. May I ask how long ago did you saw her?”
Sunset adopted a more pushy attitude, “About ten minutes ago, she’s probably still around there, maybe you can catch up with her if you hurry now.”
The guard nodded and took off in that direction. Sunset grew a smirk and followed behind.
The guard got to a dead end, after a short run, there was nopony on the area and there were really no plausible hidden places around.
“Fufufu~” with a soft giggling Sunset approached the confused guard.
The guard turned as Sunset drop off the illusion spell, his eyes wide from recognition.
Sunset with a mocking smile untied her mane, “well, hello there hon, do you remember me?”
“Criminal! In the name of Princess Celestia, surrender now or face the consequenc-“
A magic blast shut him up and sent him flying against the wall.
“It’s good to see Sunbutt’s guards are still as useless as ever. I wonder what went through my mind when I decided to join that bunch in the past.”
She rounded him as if she were a predator sizing its prey.
“It doesn’t matter much; you’re going to tell me what I want.”
The guard weak as he was, wasn’t going to budge so easily, “You won’t get anything from me, ruffian.”
Sunset closed the distance until their noses almost touched, “Oh~ but I will, don’t worry about that.”
The last thing the guard saw was Sunset igniting her horn before everything went black for him.
Fluttershy and Blazy went out for groceries, Fluttershy suggested that Blazy stayed home, but the hyperactive mare wanted to help and Fluttershy just couldn’t say no to her.
Fluttershy just couldn’t get enough of Blazy while she was in her “pure form.” Oh, don’t get her wrong, she likes Efreet just as much but something about Blazy makes her motherly instincts to kick in, even the way in which they were walking together right now gave that same sensation to onlookers. Obviously Blazy didn’t look like a filly since she’s fifteen, but her childish excitement and bouncy way of moving around made her adorable, this behavior reminded Fluttershy of Pinkie Pie only a little less hyperactive than the party pony.
As they strolled by the market buying the necessary things for dinner and then some more, ponies started talking about the new mare that nopony knew. Many question came out of this, such as if Blazy was related to Fluttershy, if she was just a friend and the one question that threw Fluttershy off the most, ‘is she your daughter?’
Something about that question that should’ve been answered with a simple ‘no’ was tormenting her, but why? Why did she felt that way?
‘I… I can’t do that, focus Fluttershy… even if I love her as if she were my own child, I can’t… Blazy surely has somepony out there, somepony who is looking for her. I’m only making sure she’s ok until they come for her, I couldn’t possibly think of her as my daughter… Blazy wouldn’t…’
Fluttershy’s train of thought got interrupted when Blazy suddenly hugged her.
“Mom?” Fluttershy heard Blazy speak with wonder on her voice.
Fluttershy looked at her wide eyed, “w-what did y-you call me?” tears about to escape her eyes.
Blazing Heart let go and sat on her rump, “Flutters, I’m sorry… I wanted to make a little joke, please don’t cry, I’m sorry…” Blazy was on the verge of tears as well.
Fluttershy recovered and saw the sad expression on Blazy, this time was her who started the hug, “forgive me Blazy… it wasn’t my intention to make you feel sad, what you said surprised me that’s all, please forgive me.”
“Really, you’re not sad for what I said?” Blazy asked meekly.
“I wasn’t sad Blazy, promise. Now please smile again, I don’t like seeing you sad.”
Blazy did as she was told and gave her a bright smile; she wiped the tears of her eyes and sheepishly faced the stall owner, “I’m sorry for making a scene sir…”
Fluttershy noticed how awkward the two of them would have looked doing this in the middle of the road and followed Blazy’s example, “No, I’m sorry, I don’t know what went into me, I’m so sorry…”
The stallion didn’t know what to do, two cute mares were apologizing to him, he wasn’t sure what happened for this situation to come up but he wasn’t complaining, “don’t be, I wouldn’t think of getting mad when such cute mares are apologizing so sincerely, please think nothing of it.”
Fluttershy and Blazy nodded gratefully and finished their purchases and left, the mares around giggling amusingly made their faces flush some.
“Hello there, you sillies~”
The two shamefaced mares turned to see Pinkie Pie bouncing their way.
Blazy hid behind Fluttershy, this picked up her attention but focused on Pinkie for now, “Oh, hello Pinkie.”
“Huh? Why is Blazy hiding there, Fluttershy?”
“I don’t know… Blazy is something wrong?”
Blazy nodded slowly while averting eye contact.
Pinkie appeared at her side, “Aww… what’s wrong?”
Blazy coyly looked at Pinkie, “I’m sorry…”
Pinkie tilted her head to the side, “Huh? Why?”
“I almost hurt you… Miss Pinkie… I’m sorry.”
Then Pinkie remembered what happened the day before, “Oh! But you didn’t and you felt bad about it, I can’t be the meanie pants here and be mad at you,” then she snatched Blazy from behind Fluttershy and hugged her, “especially when you’re just a sweet fluffy little cupcake!”
Fluttershy giggled at the scene, “Pinkie forgave you, aren’t you happy Blazy?”
Blazy had a blush on her face; her white fur made it even more noticeable but nodded nonetheless.
Pinkie let the little mare go, “you’re so cute Blazy. Do you want some sweets?”
Blazy’s eyes lit up, “really?” then looked at Fluttershy and remembered what they were doing, “Umm…”
Fluttershy approached and petted Blazy’s head lightly, “it’s ok sweetie; you can go with Pinkie. I’ll get the groceries home.”
“But…”
Fluttershy shook her head with a heartwarming smile, “I don’t mind Blazy, go and have fun.”
Blazy looked at her with conflict visible in her eyes, “are you really sure Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy just nodded and gave her a quick hug.
“Awww, you two look like mom and daughter,” then a thought crossed Pinkie’s mind, “hey Blazy,” she called getting her attention, “why don’t you call Fluttershy mom?”
Blazy looked away with sadness, “I can’t, I don’t think she likes it when I do that, we just had a problem when I tried it.”
Fluttershy had a conflict in her mind, ‘wasn’t that a joke? Maybe Blazy really wanted to call me mom at that moment… her look when she said that…’ then the resolution came to her, ‘oh my goodness…’
Pinkie put a supporting hoof on Blazy’s back, “please, try it for auntie Pinkie ok? Everything will be fine.”
Blazy took a moment but weakly nodded soon after; she looked at Fluttershy with shimmering eyes, “mom?”
Fluttershy with a warm smile looked back, “yes… my child?”
A smile grew on the little mare after hearing those words, “can… can I go with M…” she took a look at Pinkie then back a Fluttershy, “auntie Pinkie to have some sweets?”
Fluttershy caressed her mane, “of course, but be sure to obey what aunt Pinkie has to say ok?”
Blazy hugged her tightly, “sure, thanks mom.”
She let go and looked at a sobbing Pinkie Pie, “auntie Pinkie? What’s wrong?”
Fluttershy knew what Pinkie was feeling right now; she had to keep it inside for now though.
Pinkie exploded into confetti and bounced around energetically, “I’m an aunt! I’m an aunt! And my niece is adorable!” she landed on front of Blazing Heart, “Oh, we are going to have so much fun! We will bake together, play together, pull pranks together, bath together, sleep together-“ and her rambling kept on going.
As if she was being energized by Pinkie, Blazy started bouncing in place with an excited look, “sure auntie, we will do so many things!”
The two hyperactive mares then started bouncing their way to Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy waved at them with a smile, “take care you two, don’t cause too much trouble.”
Blazy waved back, “Ok, mom!”
Fluttershy got to her home, quickly got inside, closed the door, put the groceries on its place, went to her room and lay on her bed.
She started crying once again.
Angel having heard her from downstairs hopped into the scene, Fluttershy didn’t close the door so he entered without trouble and looked at her with worry.
The mare cried for some minutes, before calming down to the point of just sobbing a little.
Angel waited patiently for her to let everything out.
But he waited and waited, Fluttershy has been quiet for a time now, he jumped onto the bed, fortunately Fluttershy was just sleeping, peacefully sleeping with a very serene expression on her face.
Smiling himself, Angel covered Fluttershy with the covers and hopped out of the room to let her sleep in peace.
Sunset was in a shed eating an apple with a very satisfied expression.
“So, Blazy managed to escape from Sunbutt, that’s an enjoyable surprise I must admit.”
“Now I just need to know where Blazy is, I hope she’s alright,” her mood got a little somber, “but if she doesn’t remember me…” she shook her head to compose herself, “focus Sunset, you have to find your daughter, get her to safety and plan your revenge on that garbage mare.”
She threw the apple core behind her, and stood up to leave the shed, taking a last glance behind her, the only thing visible was a bloody white horn on the ground and the apple core that was next to a covered figure on the back of the shed.
“I’m sorry for that, but now at least you know the pain I went through during all these years, good bye my love.”
With that she closed the door, took a bottle she had filled with alcohol and a piece of cloth soaked with it on the neck of the bottle, igniting the cloth with a flame she made with some branches, she threw the blazing bottle through a window of the shed and walked away.
Sometime later ponies will find the shed burning down without a clue of what could have produced it.
Blazy had a lot of fun with her "aunt", by sunset she was heading back home, not without giving a good bye hug to her "aunt" beforehoof.
She wondered what her “mom” was doing in home at that moment.
When she got home the animal received her warmly, her “mom” preparing for dinner, they spoke about their days, what they did and so on.
Later at night they were preparing for sleep, after feeding the animals one last time.
But this rose a particular issue, there was only one bed.
“You take it mom, I slept on it last night; you must be tired.”
“Oh no, you sleep on the bed Blazy, you need it more than me.”
A little argument started, doing different things to decide who will sleep on bed. But they tied on every activity, Angel who witnessed all of that, facepawed.
After some convincing, he managed to make both of them share the bed that night.
Next morning as Twilight and Spike helped Applejack transport some apples to finish a bet the apple sibling made.
*Belch*
Spike burped a scroll with a moon seal.
“A letter from Princess C-“ Twilight was cut off by Spike.
“This is from Princess Luna.”
“What?”
Spike read it out loud, after clearing his throat of course, “From grand Royal Highness Princess Luna of Equestria it’s pleased to announce the Grand Galloping Gala to be held on the magnificent Castle of the two Sisters from the 13th day of,” he squinted before continuing, “yada-yada-yada, quarterly extends an invitation to Blazing Heart plus one guest to celebrate the restoration of such historical location.”
“This isn’t even for you Twilight, I think it is for that new pony you met in the castle.”
Twilight thought about it, “but why would Princess Luna send an invitation to her so quickly?”
“Ah’ think they were old friends; maybe that’s why,” Applejack guessed.
“I suppose that may be a reason.”
Then Spike burped two golden tickets.
“Oh look, two tickets. We have to deliver these to her.”
Twilight levitated the tickets out of Spike’s claw, “I’ll make sure to do that Spike, maybe she will invite me for doing her the favor, I have never been to the Gala before.”
But Applejack stepped in front of her, “hold on a minute there Twilight, Ah’ think Ah’ should be giving her the tickets, you probably are mighty busy with the Princess assignments or something.”
Then Rainbow Dash crashed on them, “did you mention the Grand Galloping Gala?” she noticed the tickets, “I totally need one of those, can I have one?”
Spike raised a claw to say something, “Uh… those are for that pony named Blazing Heart, maybe you could ask her.”
Dash snatched the tickets, “neat, I’ll ask her right now.”
But Applejack got a hold on her tail before she dashed off and a discussion started between the three mares, Spike only watched in dumbfounded confusion.
Meanwhile inside of Blazy’s mind, Efreet had a hunch about something.
“For some reason I think this day will be a pain in the flank.”
Earlier that morning Fluttershy woke up to be greeted by Blazy’s sleeping face, seeing that cute face made her morning already, she stroked Blazy’s head gently a couple of times before getting up to prepare everything to get ready for day.
Being well rested, she was full of energy but not only because of that, ‘well, it’s time to get a nice breakfast for my little angel,’ she giggled some, ‘but not that angel.’
Blazing Heart was still sleeping, until her cutiemark changed to black, at that time she opened her sharper looking eyes, she yawned and stretched the soreness of her body away.
“Jeez, Blazy you need to take it easy, ouch.”
She took a couple of minutes to do her daily routine and then went to the kitchen, Fluttershy was making breakfast, “morning Flutters,” she gave her the good morning.
“Good morning sweetie,” Fluttershy said without thinking the one behind her wasn’t the Blazy she thought.
“What’s for breakfast? Do you need any help?” Efreet offered her aid.
Fluttershy was in the middle of turning as she said something, “Oh, don’t worry Blazy, I’m almost done, we’re having pan…” she looked at the more mature looking Blazing Heart with black ribbons on her mane, “cakes… umm… Miss Efreet?”
Efreet with a smug smile nodded, “why do I hear disappointment in your voice Flutters? Did you expect somepony else?”
Fluttershy was a little nervous, “n…no that was not what I…”
Efreet laughed amusingly, “relax Fluttershy,” she gave her a wink, “I know everything, I know you are a mommy now,” she said in a slightly mocking way, “congratulations.”
Fluttershy was not amused by that tone of voice, but accepted the compliment anyways, “thank you Miss Efreet.”
As Fluttershy prepared the table with her almost believable offended expression, Efreet snuck on her from behind without Fluttershy noticing and poked her on the side.
“Eeek!” Fluttershy jumped away, before looking back at her friend with a small frown, “why did do that?”
“You won’t be giving me the offended treatment Fluttershy.”
“Huh? What do you…”
“I was sincere when I congratulated you before Fluttershy,” Efreet suddenly said in a more gentle tone.
Before Fluttershy could respond she continued, “I can feel it, deep in my soul, there’s this feeling of fulfillment, like something that was long lost has been retrieved.”
“Something long lost? Does Blazy…” Fluttershy couldn’t finish that sentence.
Efreet shook her head some, “I honestly do not know, unless we can get back all her past memories we can’t be sure of anything. But a motherly figure is what she needs now.”
Fluttershy grew the faintest of smiles after hearing that, but that raised the question, “Miss Efreet, why didn’t you take that place? You know Blazy better than I do.”
Efreet deadpanned, “Flutters, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“We share the same body; a motherly figure should be able to be with her whenever she wants, the only moment we can be together is when she sleeps, besides she already sees me as an older sister of sorts,” Efreet smiled when she said ‘sister.’
“Oh… I see…” Fluttershy avoided eye contact.
Efreet hooked her leg around Fluttershy’s back and drew her closer, “he he, I’m happy for both of you, I don’t think Blazy could ask for a better mother, so enjoy it Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy blushed, “thanks…”
Efreet let her go, “so, can we eat those now? I’m kind of hungry.”
Fluttershy nodded, “sure, enjoy yourself.”
Efreet sat at the table, but before starting to eat, “oh, one more thing, just call me ‘Blazy’ it would be weird for other ponies if you go around calling me in totally different names.”
“Oh… I’m sorry… I forgot about it for a moment,” Fluttershy looked to the side embarrassed.
Efreet waved a hoof dismissively “Don’t worry that much, you’re the only one who calls me by my actual name, just don’t do it in public and everything will be fine.”
Then they enjoyed a nice breakfast, it was such a nice and peaceful day at that moment.
Later that morning after attending the animals, the two of them heard a knock at the door and… somepony arguing?
Efreet opened the door, and saw some of Fluttershy’s friends, “Good morning, what are you three doing here though? Are you looking for Fluttershy? I can call her if you want.”
They looked with narrow eyes at each other and then changed to very unconvincing smiles.
Twilight who had a scroll on her magic was the one to speak, “good morning Blazing Heart,” she greeted, “and today we came for you actually.”
“You were looking for me?” Efreet said in confusion, “why?”
Twilight then passed the scroll to Efreet, “Princess Luna sent this to you.”
She took the scroll, found the tickets inside but ignored them for the time being as she read the letter, “Oh I see, thanks for bringing this to me hmm…Twilight, right?”
“It’s no problem at all, is only normal to help a friend.”
“Suuuuuure Twilight, you totally did it to ‘help’” Rainbow didn’t even try to disguise her sarcasm.
Twilight scowled at her, “you say that as if your intentions were any different Rainbow.”
Fluttershy came to the door next, “hi girls, umm… is something wrong?”
Efreet replied, “I don’t know, they just suddenly started to argue.”
Applejack then joined in the conversation, “they want one of yer tickets sugar cube.”
“I wonder why, it’s quite obvious that I’m taking Fluttershy with me,” Efreet replied sincerely.
Fluttershy didn’t know what this was about, “what tickets Blazy?”
“For the Grand Galloping Gala, Luna is hosting it on the castle after its repairs in three months from now,” Efreet explained as she put the tickets securely on a drawer in the little table at the entrance.
“What!?” the other three said at once.
“Are you sure you want to take me with you Blazy?” Fluttershy said meekly as she tried to hide her growing happiness.
Efreet nodded decisively, “of course, you’re my best friend Flutters and from your behavior I can tell you want to go too.”
“Well… it’s not really that much for the Gala itself…”
“What is it then? Why do you want to go?” Efreet was upfront and just asked her directly.
“For the possibility of seeing the exotic flora and fauna that the Princess will have in the castle, that’s all really…” Fluttershy explained as she played innocently with her mane.
“Oh I see, it fits you actually and if my memory doesn’t fail me, Luna was the one with a taste for animals back in the day, so I believe she will have a spacious garden to host them there, I can ask her if you want,” Efreet offered and saw Fluttershy’s eyes lit up.
“Really?” Fluttershy asked hopefully, Efreet nodded with a smile.
Rainbow flew into Efreet’s face, “hey what about me? I want to go to the gala too.”
“Why should I care about that? We haven’t even spend any time together, I could understand Pinkie Pie, but for the rest of you I don’t see why should I give you the extra ticket,” Efreet raised a point.
“Aren’t we friends as well?” Twilight asked in hopes for this to be a good argument.
But Efreet wasn’t one to be fooled so easily, “again, we haven’t spent any time together besides that short time in the castle. I can’t see you as friends yet, but we can work around that.”
She sighed, “look, let’s do this, tell why do you want to go to the Gala and I’ll ask Luna for more tickets, how does that sound?”
The mares perked up at that, looked at each other, then at Efreet and nodded with smiles.
“Well then, Fluttershy can we talk about this inside the house? If I’m going to make friends may as well be comfy doing it.”
Fluttershy giggled into a hoof, “I didn’t expect you to ask nicely, but sure you can.”
Efreet snorted, “Whatever you say Flutters. Well, come on in everypony.”
After all the mares got comfy on the living room, they told Efreet about their reasons for them to go to the Gala.
“So, let me get this straight, Applejack you want to go to the Gala to sell your apple products, right?” Efreet wanted to confirm it.
“That’s right sugarcube.”
“Rainbow Dash, you want to go just to hang out with the Wonderbolts, is that correct?”
Rainbow simply responded with, “yep.”
“And Twilight, you just want to go because you’ve never experienced the Gala before, right?”
Twilight nodded, “that’s correct Blazing Heart.”
Efreet was satisfied after confirming everything, “alright then, I’ll ask Luna for more tickets, I think I should ask for six more because I assume Pinkie Pie would like to go and your other friend whose name eludes me right now will have some interest in going as well.”
Twilight noticed the count was off, “wait, why six? Even with Pinkie and Rarity that just adds five more tickets, for whom is the last one?”
“I heard from Fluttershy that you had a little dragon friend with you, I thought about being considerate and keep the entire group together.”
Fluttershy smiled knowingly, she knew Efreet was a sweetheart as well.
“That’s so kind of you Blazing Heart,” Twilight showed up her appreciation before continuing, “I don’t know if Spike would like to go though, he’s not into ‘girly fru fru stuff’ as he would say.”
“That’s weird, the Gala as far as I remember never was ‘girly’ per say. Then again it has been a thousand years since I assisted one, so I don’t know how time has changed that party in particular,” Efreet said as she checked out some of her old memories.
Something about that made Twilight confused, “Blazing Heart,” she called getting her attention, “that has been the second time you mentioned a thousand years, as if you lived back then.”
Rainbow joined too, “yeah, you said the same thing with Princess Luna back in the castle, what’s the deal with that?”
Fluttershy started to feel uneasy to hear about Efreet’s past, but was curious at the same time, “Blazy, can you… umm… tell us about that? If that’s ok with you that is.”
“Alright, it’s better if I get this out of the way now, so Blazy will have a better time around, she needs all the company she can get, besides I promised I would share this after I settle down,” Efreet said this as she looked at Twilight, “this could take a while, so if you don’t have much time, I suggest that you go now.”
Twilight lifted a hoof to say something, “I need to get some notepads and quills, I want to register this since I don’t remember it being on any books I read up to this day, can I go get those? I’ll be quick.”
“Sure, you’re the one who wanted to know this the most, so go get whatever materials you see necessary.”
Twilight gave a thankful nod and took out to her library to get everything.
Efreet looked at the other two, “what about you two? Is there something you have to do? I don’t want to keep you here if you do."
“Ah’m fine sugarcube,” Applejack reassured since she did her job for the day already.
Rainbow moved a lock of mane that was in the way, “I have nothing to do so I’m cool with this.”
“Ok then, let’s wait for Twilight to get back before starting with this.”
Twilight came back with her writing material and got herself comfortable for this session.
“I’m ready Blazing Heart; you can start whenever you want.”
“Alright then, let’s start with the obvious thing, I’m not the pony known as Blazing Heart right now.”
Twilight knew some of this from the short explanation Fluttershy gave them before, “we know something about it but, can you elaborate on it?”
“This body is the residence of more than one soul, Blazing Heart is the owner of the body, but an ancient spirit was also reawakened on her soul, that Spirit was me, Efreet.”
“There are three of us here, Blazing Heart the innocent little mare that couldn’t harm a fly, me Efreet the ancient spirit of fire and the one with no name.”
“The one with no name? Who’s that?” Rainbow asked.
“That’s the one with the soulless eyes and monotone voice, she’s came to be as a way to protect Blazy from losing her mind.”
Fluttershy started to fidget, she was about to hear what happened to Blazy.
Twilight then asked what had to be asked, “Losing her mind? What do mean by that? What happened to her?”
Efreet collected her thoughts and sighed, she wasn’t prepared to do this but it had to be done, “Blazy was foalnapped when she was just a little filly, I can’t see to locate the memories of the whole event. This is because Blazy’s memories are sealed, but not all of them, she knows who she is and her personality hasn’t changed; it seems the sealed memories are blocking something in particular, but unless we manage to unseal them we can’t be sure of what that seal is blocking.”
The other mares had looks of worry, even Rainbow.
Applejack’s changed to an annoyed one, and stomped a hoof on the floor, “who did that ta her!? Which kind of pony would do something like that!?”
Efreet looked at Twilight, “before that, Twilight you seem to know Princess Celestia, what do you know about her?”
Twilight took a moment to think about it, “Besides what is publicly known, she has been my mentor since I was a filly, she’s kind and understanding, always helping ponies who need it.”
Efreet smirked, “are you… sure about that?”
Everypony looked at her with confusion, “what do you mean?” Twilight asked.
But Efreet changed her mind at the last second, “never mind don’t worry about it.”
Rainbow was getting kind of impatient for some reason, “forget that, who foalnapped her and messed with her brain?”
“The Royal scientists,” Efreet said getting a gasp from Twilight, “under Celestia’s order, they were tasked to make Blazy into a weapon by removing any trace of a soul and tap into my power without waking me up.”
Twilight’s quill fell to the floor, “no… you’re lying… the Princess would never do that!”
“What are ya trying ta pull here?” Applejack asked in suspicion.
Rainbow on the other hoof had the weird feeling that Efreet wasn’t lying; then again she wasn’t really a fan of Celestia.
Without losing her composure Efreet stared them down, “I’m just telling you what you wanted to know, you asked me to tell you why I don’t want to see Celestia and that is what I did.”
“And ya expect us ta believe ya?”
“I don’t expect anything, you believing me or not is irrelevant since that doesn’t change what happened.”
Twilight held her disheveled head with both hooves, “no, no! You have no proof!”
Efreet frowned at her; “you want proof Twilight?” she approached her and looked at her in the eyes, “I’ll share what she had to suffer with you, if you want to see it close your eyes.”
Twilight didn’t answer she was just too intimidated.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you wanted proof? I’m offering you proof.”
Applejack prepared to tackle Efreet but Rainbow stopped her, “Rainbow! What are ya doing!?”
“Relax Aj, she’s not going to harm Twilight,” Rainbow reassured.
“How do ya know!?”
“Because Flutters believes her, and so do I.”
Applejack groaned before relaxing her body, Rainbow let her go and both stared at the two unicorns.
“Well?” Efreet asked as she looked at Twilight with a raised eye brow.
Twilight after calming down nodded slowly and closed her eyes.
Efreet ignited her horn and touched Twilight’s horn to share that memory.
As Twilight black void started to take form she grew nervous of what she was about to see, could it be true that her dear mentor had done what Efreet was accusing her of doing?
Twilight started to see something in all that darkness, it started as a blurry vision but it cleared up to the point it was crystal clear.
But… all she saw was a white ceiling with a light brightening the scene up in the middle.
That wasn’t all though, as her vision was improving she felt her hooves being restrained, she tried to move them but she couldn’t. By the time everything became totally clear, she felt her forehead and abdomen being held down as well.
‘Wha-what is going on!?’ she screamed in panic, but her voice didn’t go out.
Something was clearly wrong here, and it would become even worse as she saw in her peripheral vision a group of ponies in lab coats.
‘who…’ Then it clicked in her mind, this is the situation in which Blazing Heart was put on.
‘But… I don’t see the Princess here…’ she looked around, not being able to turn her head made it difficult, she was nervous but since she figured it out that it was just reliving that situation from Blazing Heart’s perspective relaxed her some.
That didn’t last long though, Twilight was surrounded by the strange ponies, they spoke about something, but Twilight couldn’t heard them and then… the pain.
‘AAAAAAH!’ Twilight felt like a thousand bolts went through her body, her scream was loud and painful, but again nothing came out.
The pain subsided shortly after but it felt like an eternity to her. She felt her body twitching, and a weird sensation going down her hind legs.
Her eyes fell on a glass window, there she saw… ‘no… it can’t be…’ Princess Celestia was at the other side of the glass with a malicious expression adorning her features.
One of the ponies in lab coats stared at the Princess, getting a nod from her, said pony turned to the others and all of them nodded, Twilight stared in horror as she saw them igniting their horns once again.
But then… everything went black.
Efreet and company saw the discomfort on Twilight’s face as she experienced first hoof that dark memory.
“What is going on with her?” Rainbow asked to Efreet.
“She’s experiencing what Blazy had to go through while being only a filly,” Efreet paused and then touched Twilight’s horn with her own once again, “I think that is enough.”
Soon after Twilight snapped her eyes open and panted heavily by the lack of oxygen in her lungs at the moment, she was sweating bullets at this point and looked around in panic and confusion.
Fluttershy tried to approach but Efreet put a leg to block her from advancing.
Both of them crossed stares, Fluttershy had one of concern and Efreet had one of empathy.
“Wait for a bit Flutters, she needs to recover from the shock,” Efreet explained to her worried friend.
“Are ya sure she will recover?” Applejack was skeptic about this; Twilight still looked out of it.
“Would you like to experience that as well? Then maybe you could teach the rest of us how to recover instantaneously,” Efreet replied rather rudely.
Applejack backed up a little, she didn’t know if Efreet was serious but she wasn’t about to take any chances.
“Blazy, please… be nice,” Fluttershy called her out.
Efreet rolled her eyes.
Ten minutes went pass, Twilight was finally showing signs of recovering her breaths slowed down and with a hoof over her chest she calmed down.
“Are you here with us Twilight?” Efreet asked curiously.
Twilight took a deep breath, “my heart is running so fast right now… d-did she really had to endure that?” her voice cracked.
Efreet hugged her sideways and looked at her, “she had to endure much, much worse Twilight. What I just show you wasn’t even two percent of what they did to her,” she frowned, “they were ruthless.”
Efreet let go of Twilight and went to look outside a window, “please don’t mind me… I need to put that memory aside once again before Blazy remembers it as well,” she said without looking away from the window, and then she remained silent.
“We understand, please take your time,” Twilight now calm reassured her, Efreet only nodded without turning to see her.
Fluttershy on the other hoof couldn’t help but worry about her friend, she didn’t know what Efreet just showed to Twilight, but only by looking at her she could tell that it was horrible. Unconsciously she was making her way towards Efreet, but a blue hoof blocked her way.
Rainbow and she exchanged stared for a moment before Rainbow shook her head, “you heard her Flutters. She needs some time alone.”
The four ponies made their way to another room to give Efreet space to be alone with her thoughts.
‘Thank you Rainbow,’ Efreet thought.
Twenty minutes have passed; Twilight took this time to explain what she saw on Blazing Heart’s memories, it was hard to accept for all of them.
Applejack had to cover her eyes with her hat to avoid showing her disappointment and anger, Rainbow Dash wasn’t faring much better she had to force herself to not break anything that didn’t stopped her from kicking the floor as she paced back and forward. Fluttershy was visibly shaking and on the verge of tears, she was clearly trying to fight against it but couldn’t handle what Twilight just told them. Finally Twilight herself… even if Fluttershy was the most sensitive to this kind of situation, she was the most affected after knowing her mentor and inspirational figure was doing something so despicable, she didn’t know how many ponies (if there were any) had to go through that same torture over time just to know if they were the one hosting Efreet inside them.
Then a thought came to her, ‘Blazing Heart… she… she’s younger than me, I don’t know by how much but that means… Princess Celestia was torturing her at the same time I was under her wing as her student… I… I need to know!’ Twilight got up and was going towards the room where Efreet was collecting her thoughts.
But upon arriving to the door frame she almost collided with Blazing Heart as she was crossing the door frame as well.
Due to the surprise Twilight fell flat on her rump.
Efreet looked at her quizzically, “is something wrong Twilight?”
“Well… I…” but Twilight couldn’t bring herself to ask.
Efreet scanned the room and saw the somber mood, she sighed, “you told them, right?” she asked Twilight.
Twilight slowly nodded and looked away.
“I can’t blame you for feeling this way,” Efreet told them.
Fluttershy hug tackled her not a second after.
“Blazy… I-I’m so sorry…”
Efreet patted her on the back, “there, there Fluttershy. All of that is in the past now.”
“No it’s not! The Princess has been doing this… behind my back, she lied to me, and she lied to everypony!” Twilight snapped.
Rainbow approached, “Twilight’s right, she has to pay for what she did.”
Applejack was the next to speak up, “as much as Ah’ want ta buck her in da face repeatedly, we can’t just do that, Princess Celestia has tons of guards with her.”
“So? We have Princess Luna on our side, don’t she has guards too?” Rainbow asked.
“Actually, the night guard is outnumbered ten to one by the day guard, Luna has her hooves tied until she manages to repair the old castle and we can have an actual meeting to attend this topic,” Efreet explained to Rainbow after getting up.
Before the conversation could go any further Pinkie Pie stormed in picked up Efreet (somehow) and dashed off.
The others were left bewildered at this sudden interference, when they processed what happened they chased after Pinkie.
“What was that about?” Rainbow asked to the group as they were running/flying after Pinkie.
“I don’t know Rainbow, but we’re going to find out,” Twilight replied to her.
The group followed Pinkie to the edge of town, a multitude of ponies was gathered and in front of them was a wall of… ice?
Efreet and Pinkie were the closest to the wall, on the other side of the wall was a group of cows going away from it.
The group reunited again, even Rarity got there with them.
“Twilight darling, what do you think happened here?” Rarity asked as she gazed upon the majestic ice wall.
“I’m not sure, Rarity.” Upon closer inspection Twilight noticed this wasn’t ordinary ice, she looked at Efreet.
“Pinkie, did you know what happened here?” Efreet was watching the wall in disbelief.
Pinkie was trying to scrape some of the ice into a bowl but stopped when Efreet called her, “Oh!” she threw the bowl somewhere behind her. “The cows were running towards Ponyville in a stampede,” she was running in place getting dirt up, “and we were all like ‘Ah! Help!’” she yelled dramatically, “but when they were closing on us, this wall,” she hit the ice wall for emphasis, “appeared out of nowhere, it was crazy!”
Efreet looked around frantically.
Fluttershy got a little worried, “Blazy? Is something wrong?”
“It’s not that, Fluttershy. Pinkie, did you saw any suspicious pony around when the wall appeared?” Efreet had a hunch but she had to be sure.
Pinkie brought a hoof to her chin and started thinking, “hmm, not really. There were only the town ponies running around screaming, and this one shy mare wearing a green bunny hoodie.”
Efreet eyes got wide, “was her coat a soft light shade of blue, and her mane blue with sparkles that made it look like she had crystals on it?”
Rarity perked up at that description, “are you talking about Winter Glimmer darling?”
Efreet looked at her in confusion, “Winter Glimmer?”
“Why yes, dear. Winter Glimmer is a sweetheart, she comes to my boutique every once in a while and helps me around. I made that green hoodie as a reward for her; I always wondered how she treats her mane and tail to make them look so gorgeous, but she always shies away when I bring up the topic,” Rarity explained, “but what does she has to do with any of this, darling?” she pointed at the wall.
Twilight thought about it for a moment, “Efreet, is she…”
Efreet nodded, “there’s the possibility one of the other spirits is here on Ponyville.”
“But I thought you were the only spirit,” Twilight grew confused at this revelation.
Efreet smirked, “I never said I was the only spirit Twilight, I just said I was ‘a’ spirit.”
At that moment the wall broke into shiny snowflakes. Everypony saw the scene in awe due to the sheer beauty of such event.
Some ponies tried to catch the snowflakes but upon contact the shiny little things exploded into smaller orbs of light before dissipating in the air.
“There’s no doubt, Hermit was here,” Efreet suddenly said.
“Hermit?” Twilight asked.
Efreet nodded, “yes Twilight. Hermit is the ancient spirit of ice, her name is quite appropriate as she doesn’t like being around others for long periods of time, but as shy as she can be, she also has a nice personality.”
“Do you think Winter Glimmer is Hermit, Blazy?” Fluttershy asked out of curiosity, she didn’t know this Winter Glimmer personally but heard of her from Rarity sometimes.
Looking at the distance Efreet replied, “I’m not sure Fluttershy,” but she noticed something moving towards a mountain that was close to town, focusing in the silhouette she could make up long curved ears, this made her smile, “but, we are going to find out,” she told to the group, “I’m going to the mountain, if anypony wants to come, please pack some food and come back here in half an hour, come on Fluttershy,” she said before galloping in direction to Fluttershy’s cottage.
Fluttershy didn’t know why Efreet wanted to go to the mountain but followed suit regardless.
The others were left confused at this sudden turn of events, but there had to be a reason for this.
Twilight looked to the other three… wait three?
“Where’s Pinkie?” Twilight asked with a raised eye-brow.
Rainbow pointed in the direction Efreet and Fluttershy went, “behind those two.”
“Oh, ok. I’m curious about what Efreet is planning by going to the mountain, so I’ll tag along,” Twilight exclaimed, “but that’s just me, what are you going to do girls?”
“Sign me on, after what happened back there I’m going to help her,” Rainbow’s words had certain determination behind them.
“Ah’m with Rainbow here, we can’t let ‘em get away with what they did ta her,” Applejack added.
Twilight looked at Rarity next, “Rarity?”
“I have some questions, dear. But if something is happening that requires my assistance I will be glad to offer a helping hoof,” Rarity said as she puffed up her chest.
Twilight nodded, “alright, I’ll explain what happened on the way there Rarity,” she mentioned getting a nod from Rarity, “now let’s get some provisions in case this takes a long time and meet right here like Efreet said.”
Everypony nodded and went to their respective homes to prepare for the trip to the mountain.
Meanwhile Winter Glimmer stood in front of a cave at the top of the mountain.
“Razer… are you awake…” she called softly.
A loud growl was heard, “yes I’am. What do you want now, Glimmer?”
“Can you… like guard the entrance a little more today?” Winter asked coyly.
A big red dragon emerged from the ominous cave, “Why?”
“I think somepony saw me… and they will come here… that’s why,” Winter looked at the ground and kick it playfully, “so… can you, please? For me?”
Razer rolled his eyes, “Sure, but you owe me some crystals for cutting my afternoon nap short.”
Her eyes lit up and a cute smile grew on her, “thank you…” then she entered the cave.
“Sometimes I wonder why I let you boss me around,” Razer then sat at the entrance of the cave and inhaling deeply he blew a black cloud of smoke that covered the area and then went inside the cave as well.
Razer lay down on his treasure bed, but on high alert. Winter Glimmer approached and snuggled on his side as her breathing became slow and steady, soon after she was snoring cutely on her dragon sized pillow with a smile on her face.
After she got asleep Razer put a bed sheet over her, ‘you’re such a pain in the butt sometimes. But I’m not complaining,’ he smiled for a moment before focusing on the entrance of the cave.
The group lead by Efreet was at the foot of the mountain. They quickly noticed how different it became from just a few minutes ago.
“Where did all those black clouds came from?” Twilight made an observation.
But Rainbow noticed something strange with the clouds, “that is smoke, not even thunder clouds are that black.”
“There could be various reasons for the smoke to be there, but since it happened so suddenly, I think there’s only one explanation for this.” Efreet paused dramatically and the others looked at her with worry, “a dragon.”
Everypony gasped, “A dragon!?”
Efreet nodded, “Yes a dragon,” she paused briefly for suspense’s sake, “not just that, by the amount of smoke on the area I’d say it is an adult dragon.”
“Eeek!” Fluttershy screamed and snuggled Efreet as she shook in fear.
Efreet rolled her eyes, “this is going to last for a while isn’t?”
Rainbow descended a bit and put a supporting hoof on Efreet’s back, “I feel sorry for you,” she said with the most convincing straight face she could muster, but it was obvious she was holding a laugh.
“It is not me for whom you should be feeling sorry for. Regardless let just go,” Efreet said before starting the walk up the mountain with Fluttershy still attached to her.
“What was that about?” Rainbow was confused by that little statement.
Twilight with the rest behind her started following Efreet, “after what she show us, I can understand why she would say that Rainbow. What were you thinking?” she said this as she passed Rainbow.
“I was just making a joke!” Rainbow protested.
“Maybe ya should think before making ‘em jokes Rainbow.”
“I still do not know what is really happening, can somepony be a dear and tell me what is this all about?”
“I’ll tell you Rarity, but it is not easy to talk about it. It was a very big and disgusting revelation for all of us, me in particular for being Princess Celestia’s protégé…” looking at Rarity’s confused expression, Twilight proceeded to explain what all of them discovered thanks to Blazing Heart’s memories.
Pinkie, Efreet and Fluttershy were walking at the front as the rest were following from a distance.
Rarity was wiping away some tears with a tissue, “poor little thing… she has suffered so much.” Then rage took over, “what that, that… whorse!” Rarity quickly covered her mouth after shouting that.
Efreet turned, “good one, Rarity. I still think that mare deserves way worse tough, but you’re good.”
“Why thank you dear. Even if I don’t approve of such language and I’ll be taking multiple baths after this little journey ends, I don’t regret saying that,” Rarity was brimming with pride.
Efreet giggled, “We’ll become really good friends Rarity I can see that now, just don’t lose your temper if Blazy’s around,” she joked.
“Ha ha, very funny darling,” Rarity said sarcastically.
Pinkie tapped Efreet on the back getting her attention, “hey Ifry, can we have Blazy back for a bit, pleeeeeease?”
Efreet raised an eye-brow, “why?”
Pinkie acted strangely meek, “I… I want to hug her, let her know that her auntie Pinkie will always be there for her. Ifry, pleeeeeeease?”
Efreet thought about it, the group stopped momentarily because of this, “Alright, I’ll let Blazy take control until we get to the source of the smoke.”
Pinkie and Fluttershy’s eyes lit up at this.
“But with one condition, nopony will tell her anything of what you now are aware of, I don’t want her to remember that.” Efreet displayed a serious expression as she said this, but her features softed before continuing, “I would ask you to protect her as she’s in control, but I think it’s not necessary, right?”
“You can count on us Efreet, Blazing Heart will not come to harm’s way I promise,” Twilight spoke up.
“Thank you,” with that said Efreet closed her eyes and focused, the ribbons on her mane changed from black to white and her cutie mark from a black burning heart to a red one.
“Blazy?” Fluttershy asked softly.
Blazing Heart slowly opened her eyes, “huh?” she looked at Fluttershy, “mom?”
“Good morning sweetie.”
The others besides Pinkie didn’t know what to make of this revelation.
“Mooooooorning, Blazy! Here have a cupcake!” Pinkie suddenly forced a cupcake into Blazy’s mouth, “how is it!?”
After the starting surprise passed, Blazy chewed on the cupcake tasting its flavor with a happy expression, “ish delishious!” she swallowed, “thank you auntie,” Blazy gave Pinkie a hug.
“Aww, Blazy you’re so cute! I will never let you go!” Both Pinkie and Blazy started giggling amusingly.
Fluttershy looked with a warm expression at the giggling duo.
“Can somepony please tell what’s going on now? I don’t get it,” Rainbow asked as she got closer.
Fluttershy blushed some, “Well… you see…”
Twenty minutes later the group was at a cliff’s side.
“Be careful, this area seems unstable, try not to make any loud noises until we get past it,” Twilight recommended.
“Uhh… what would happen if we do?” Blazy asked curiously.
Rainbow creeped closer to her, “rock avalanche,” she whispered into her ear.
Blazy yelped, “A-avalanche…?” she shakily asked.
“Rainbow…” Applejack called.
But she didn’t took notice of it, or she didn’t want to notice to be more precise, instead she grew a mischievous smirk, “yeah… it’s a scary thing, rocks fall all over and if you get hit by one you get crushed.”
“Eeek!” Blazy screamed a little too loud and well… the area started to shake.
“Oh, horseapples.”
“Run!”
Everypony except Rainbow ran with all their strength to get away from the big rocks that were falling, they dodged, jumped, stopped and ran again to avoid the mortal danger that these rocks represented.
Rainbow on the other hoof just treated this as a game, flying casually between the rocks without paying attention to the dismay this caused to her friends bellow.
Fluttershy was running behind Blazing Heart, everything seemed to be fine so far, just a little more and they will make it. But, then a little rock hit Blazy on her front leg making her trip under the trajectory of a huge rock. Fluttershy’s eyes shrank and in an impulse she dashed as fast as she could, “Blazy!!!” she screamed.
The rest who managed to get out of avalanche turned back when they heard Fluttershy’s scream and looked in shock at what was going to happen.
Pinkie tried to get back but was stopped by Applejack.
“Applejack, let me go!” Pinkie protested in despair.
“It’s dangerous ta get back there Pinkie!”
Even Rainbow was paralyzed.
Fluttershy managed to get in time and grabbed Blazy from her mid-section; she knew she wouldn’t get out in time by carrying Blazy with her, “everything will be fine sweetheart.” She whispered to her.
“Mom?” Blazy didn’t like how her mom said that.
The next thing she knew was that her mom threw her outside of the radius of the rock; she hit the hard ground and rolled a couple of feet from the angle she landed on, when she lifted her head to look back time seemed to stop slow down for her.
Fluttershy looked at her with a warm smile, “be nice, ok? And remember that I’ll always love you,” she said trying to hide her resignation.
Blazing Heart eyes shrank to pinpricks, “mom!” she tried to get closer but she wouldn’t make it in time, “mommy!!!” she screamed in despair.
Just moments before the rock could crush Fluttershy, something on Blazy’s mind broke and an image flashed in her head.
‘I want mommy!’ she heard herself as a filly, the image showed her a tall white mare in golden regalia, some armored ponies and another mare she couldn’t recognize but it seemed familiar to her.
“Fluttershy!” the group screamed from the other side.
Rainbow finally snapped out of her shock to dash off but she wouldn’t be able to make it in time, ‘what have I done!? Why was I so stupid!?’ she thought to herself.
“Noooooo!!!” Blazy’s voice resounded on the area and her body floated a feet away from the ground before a swarm of fireballs flew all over.
The rest of the falling rocks including the one about to crush Fluttershy became dust after colliding with the fireballs.
Rainbow got sent spiraling backwards from the various explosions; the others could only stare in awe at the scene developing in front of them.
‘Noooooo!!!’ Sunset violently woke up and started looking around frantically.
“What... was that?”
She continued to look around.
“That sounded like…”
Then the realization came to her.
“Blazy!”
Sunset put up her illusion spell, got her packed saddlebags and ran out of her hideout in direction of Manehattan’s train station.
‘Blazy is in trouble, screw sneaking around, my little angel needs me!’
Razer started intently at the cave’s entrance, what just happened wasn’t normal. Whoever was coming to the top of the mountain was not any normal pony.
Not any pony would be able to throw fire like that.
“That was not normal magic either, could it be that another dragon is coming?”
“I… do not think that’s the case, Razer…”
“Ponies can’t throw fire, Glimmer.”
“Ponies can’t make ice either… but I can…”
Razer rolled his eyes, “you’re not anypony Glimmer, don’t compare yourself with other ponies.”
“Umm… I don’t feel different from anypony else…”
“You know what? Forget it; whoever is coming can use fire as well, I’m curious about that, but what do you want me to do with them?”
“Just… get them to go away… don’t hurt them if you can avoid it, please… I don’t want anypony to be hurt.”
“If that is what you want then it will be done, Glimmer.”
“Thank you…”
“Don’t mention it.”
They were prepared to receive their guests, but didn’t know that somepony else was around as well.
Twilight and the rest couldn’t see anything from the dust cloud that formed from the rocks that exploded.
“Is everypony alright?” Twilight asked with concern.
“Pinkie and Ah’ are fine.”
“I couldn’t say I ‘am fine dear, this dust is ruining my mane!”
“What just happened now?” Rainbow dug herself out of a little tree that grew at the side of the mountain.
“Blazy! Fluttershy!” Pinkie rushed deeper into the dust cloud.
“Blazy! Fluttershy! Answer me please!”
“Pinkie, we’re over here. Blazy is unconscious, but I can’t see the way to get out,” Fluttershy said from somewhere inside the cloud.
“I’m coming Fluttershy!” Pinkie said that, but she couldn’t see a thing either.
“Rainbow,” Twilight called, “can you make an air stream?”
“Yeah, I can. Why?”
“Can you make one strong enough to clear the dust cloud?”
“This thing is massive; it will take a while to disperse it.”
“Just do it Rainbow, we need to help Fluttershy and Blazing Heart!”
“On it!” Rainbow started to fly in circles increasing in speed with every lap.
Periodically Rainbow’s rotation started to create a mini tornado that slowly pushed the dust cloud upwards.
“It’s working Rainbow, keep going! Pinkie, Fluttershy, Blazing Heart! Keep down until Rainbow clears the dust!” Twilight advised.
Fluttershy hearing what was going on kept Blazing Heart close to her, “we’re going to be fine Blazy… Rainbow will get us out of here,” she said softly.
Pinkie crawled close to the ground and sniffed around like a dog, she was following a particular smell she could recognize, and eventually she managed to get to Fluttershy and Blazy, “found ya!”
“Pinkie? How did you find us?” Fluttershy asked with surprise.
“Oh, you silly filly,” Pinkie put up a jester’s outfit she took from somewhere in her mane, “I can do anything!” Then she threw the outfit away and took cover closer to the other two.
Pinkie glanced upwards to an edge, up there she saw two pony silhouettes, but she couldn’t make up details about them.
Shortly after a strong gust of wind came out suddenly, dissipating the dust cloud almost immediately.
Everypony had to close their eyes due to the strong wind.
“What is this!?” Twilight’s voice was muffled by the wind current.
Rainbow thought the wind would throw her away, but it didn’t she noticed something strange about this sudden wind current, ‘why is the wind avoiding me?’
About a minute later the dust cloud was no more.
When the wind calmed down, the group opened their eyes to see what happened.
The area was clean, even the smoke wasn’t there anymore either.
“W-what happened?” Twilight asked in complete confusion.
Everypony looked at Rainbow with suspicious stares.
She crossed her front legs and frowned, “hey don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do that.”
Pinkie helped Fluttershy to get on her hooves and carried Blazy on her back.
“That wind was weird.” She pointed out.
“What do you mean with weird?” Twilight asked.
Rainbow landed with the group, “It wasn’t normal wind, somepony was moving it. Pegasus can produce wind with speed but we can’t move it like that.”
“What are ya saying Rainbow, nopony can’t move wind.”
“I know, but this wind moved, I swear! I was in the middle of that thing and the wind didn’t hit me, it went around me,” Rainbow explained.
“Maybe the ponies that were up there move it?” Pinkie guessed by what she saw earlier.
“Leaving that aside for a moment, is our dear Blazing Heart alright?”
“She’s ok Rarity, I was scared at first but she just passed out thankfully,” Fluttershy reassured before stroking Blazy’s mane softly.
Everypony was glad that nopony was hurt after all of this.
Rainbow apologized for acting so recklessly before and the question if they should keep going arise.
“We have to keep going girls, we confirmed that there’s something strange in this mountain, we have an adult dragon and suspicions about another spirit, on top of that there’s this mysterious wind,” Twilight adopted a more serious behavior.
“But what could we possibly do against a dragon darling? We are just a group of ponies,” Rarity raised a point.
Applejack nodded in agreement, “that and what will we do if da dragon goes mad at us?”
“Can’t we just like kick his butt or something?” Rainbow asked non-chanlantly.
“Dragon scales are very sturdy and can resist magic, doing damage to them is not easy, our best option is trying to talk him down.” Twilight replied.
“But what about the spirit, silly?” Pinkie raised another good point.
“Well,” Rarity started, “if Winter Glimmer is in fact a spirit like Miss Efreet suspects, I think we could get to good terms with her, she’s not somepony violent like Rainbow Dash.”
“Hey!” Rainbow interrupted.
“Rainbow dear, I didn’t finish my statement, please stay silent until I do so,” Rarity said firmly.
Rainbow groaned but didn’t protest any further.
“As I was saying Winter Glimmer is not a violent pony, she has been nothing more than a sweetheart during all this time I’ve known her.”
“We can’t be sure Rarity, what if she was just acting nice?” Twilight raised the question.
All of them were thinking of possible situations that could play out, ignoring the fact that somepony was watching them.
“Aww… they aren’t doing any more risky stuff, booooooring.” A cheerful voice said.
“What did you expect sis? They are just normal ponies,” a more calmer voice replied.
“But they have Ifry’s new host with them! They could do so much fun stuff!”
“Why are you calling Miss Efreet that way?”
“Hey the pink one called her that and was no biggie, so I’m doing it too!” the cheerful one said with her rock solid logic.
“She will be mad at you when she finds out.” The calm one pointed out.
“You’re thinking too much about it sis, Ifry loves me too much to hurt me.” The cheerful one said with certainty.
“I think you’re confusing love with tolerance there, sis.” The calm one said, noticing the obliviousness of her sibling.
“Same thing, sis.”
The calm one sighed, “Anyway what do we do now, sis?”
“Well, duh. We keep stalking them of course; we can probably see something interesting if we do, especially with Ifry and Hermy here.”
“One day this mentality of yours will come to bit you in the flank, sis.”
“Nuh uh, I’m too cool for that!”
The calm one facehoofed, “let’s just go.”
The cheerful one giggled amusingly, “You’re the boss, sis!”
With that both of them disappeared in a gust of wind.
Sunset wanted nothing more than to get where her daughter was as soon as possible. In the back of her head there was the thought that maybe she was hearing things due to the amount of time she spent in the dark void, and those memories of Blazy were haunting her.
But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything anymore besides finding Blazy and getting revenge on Sunbutt, and she was sure as hay that nothing will prevent her from making those two wishes a reality.
After arriving to the train station she was facing a dilemma, where should she go next? There weren’t as many guards around now due to most of them going to check on her little fireplace. So she had time to check the map in detail.
‘Where could Blazy be right now? Hmm,’ her eyes glanced at Canterlot, ‘Canterlot is a big no. If she were to be there Sunbutt would have caught her already.’ She keep looking at the map, ‘from what I got from Proud Chaser before his “departure,” Sunbutt is looking over the big cities for both of us, so my destination should be a small town,’ her focus changed to the south of Equestria, ‘Appleloosa, Dodge Junction or Ponyville are good choices. Hollow Shades is another possibility but it’s in between here and Canterlot so there’s probably guard presence there as well.’
Taping her chin some she made her mind, ‘alright, I’ll go directly to Ponyville, hopefully no guards will be roaming around there. Sure, it is close to Canterlot and that could be an issue, but if I remember correctly most stuck up ponies from Canterlot despise the southern areas of Equestria. I’ll check if Blazy is around and then go to Appleloosa if I don’t find anything.’
Sunset then went to the box-office to buy her tickets and waited for her train to come.
Half an hour later she was on board, ‘Blazy… I’ll be there soon, I promise.’ This was her last thought before trying to sleep some. This was a long trip after all.
Meanwhile in Canterlot, Princess Celestia was not happy with the results her guards have brought to her.
She was on her personal chambers for privacy’s sake, “how is this possible? How can a single mare avoid detection for so long?”
Celestia critically analyzed the situation at hoof as she served herself a cup of tea, “for one side Sunset was always on top of her class during her time in the school for gifted unicorns. She always focused on improving herself, even in combat which was strange, normally brilliant unicorns tend to end up like Twilight, but Sunset was different. Could it be possible that Sunset went as far as to learn spells that were used for war in the old days? For what purpose? Did she suspect anything beforehoof?”
“Then there is the report about Proud Chaser’s decease in a burn down shed on Manehattan, that was Sunset’s doing without a doubt. It is too much of a coincidence to be anything else and still she managed to stay unseen.”
She took a sip from her tea and re arranged the reports on her table, “On the other side there’s Blazing Heart, what happened to her is still something I cannot understand. The spell I put on her brain should have been perfect, how was she able to break free of it? Sunset couldn’t have possibly done that, right?”
Suddenly her room became darker as if it were night time.
“What is this!?” Celestia stood up rapidly and scanned the area, “Gua-“
“Don’t even bother, I disposed of them already fufufu~” a sweet alluring voice spoke up.
“Who’s there!? Show yourself!” Celestia demanded trying her hardest to locate the intruder.
The voice giggled darkly, “A Princess shouldn’t lose her composure under any circumstances. What would your subjects think if they were to see you like this?”
Soon after a soft clopping of hooves could be heard on the room, then a light gray unicorn mare with a long and smooth black mane tied on twin tails emerged from the darkness. On her dark purple magic an open foldable wooden fan was floating covering her mouth, the bangs of her mane covered her left eye and her right eye was red.
“Who are you?” Celestia asked with hostility at the mare in front of her.
The mare grew an amusing expression, “I’ am the spirit of darkness, Nightmare. But lowly ponies like you know me as Shadow Dancer.”
“Another spirit?” Celestia was confused since she didn’t know other spirits existed.
“Yes, you wouldn’t have thought that Efreet was the only spirit now, have you?” She folded her fan and put the tip over her lips as an innocent smile adorned her features.
“There were only legends, but nopony ever managed to get any proof of other spirits existing besides Efreet. Regardless this is perfect,” Celestia’s expression changed to a devious one, “I now can get another spirit under my control.” She rose to her full height.
Shadow Dancer giggled amusingly, “my, my. You seem to think that you can do something against a fully awakened spirit. You underestimate us majesty.”
Celestia did not lose her confidence, “There’s nothing for me to fear, you spirits are just normal ponies with control over ancestral magic, but normal ponies nonetheless. I managed to get Efreet under my control once, so I can do it again with you Nightmare.”
Celestia ignited her horn and threw a blast of magic towards Nightmare; it collided sending the mare crashing against a wall.
Brimming with confidence Celestia approached the downed unicorn, just to hear a laugh behind her. This sent a chill down her spine and turned rapidly.
“Jijiji, you don’t seem to understand Princess. I’ am not the same as my dear Efreet, this body you see is my own. I’m not limited by a host, and most importantly,” Nightmare’s pupils shrunk and gave a maniac look, “I’m not the kind of spirit you would like to mess with.”
Soon after, Celestia was tackled down by completely blackened out ponies.
“What is this!?” Celestia managed as she struggled to fend them off.
“I’m the spirit of darkness highness; I can produce and control any darkness. Creating darkness clones is very much within my capabilities, for example…” Nightmare ignited her horn and formed a black circle in the floor in front of her.
From the circle emerged a black mass, this wiggled, expanded and contorted for a while, until it took the shape of Celestia with darkened colors.
Celestia looked with shock at her dark clone.
“She’s a cutie isn’t she?” Nightmare extended a hoof at which the dark Celestia lowered her head to receive some head pats.
Dark Celestia sat down and looked at real Celestia with a smug expression.
“What do you plan on doing?” Celestia dared to ask.
“Fufufu,” Nightmare giggled, “nothing for the time being, what happened here is just a warning. I’m in search for my dear Efreet, so I humbly request for you to step aside and do not interfere. I have my own plans for her.”
The clones disappeared inside black circles on the ground and Nightmare was ready to leave.
“Wait, Nightmare,” Celestia called after getting up, Nightmare turned her head to see her, “I propose we work together.”
“What is there for me if I were to accept this proposal of yours?”
“My guards are all around Equestria looking for her, I could tell you where she is as soon as one of them finds her, you could escort her here and I will give you a space for the two of you. What do you say?”
Nightmare looked at Celestia with a raised eyebrow, after thinking it for a moment she smiled, “I don’t need you to locate her really, but I’m intrigued for what you want to do, so I’ll humor you for now.” Her expression went darker, “just let me give you a friendly warning, if you try anything funny I’ll kill you. Regardless, I’ll keep one of my clones around; if you have any news on my dear Efreet just tell her.”
With that said Nightmare looked at a corner of the room for a moment, she smiled and then banished in the darkness, moments later the room lit up again.
Celestia let out a tired sigh and waited for a few seconds to compose herself, but after relaxing she smiled with satisfaction, ‘she’s dangerous but she will be of great assistance for capturing Blazing Heart, I will have to put up with her for now, but that will change soon.’
Celestia left the room; she had a plan to make.
In that one corner Nightmare took a quick glance before leaving emerged Princess Luna. Nightmare’s sudden appearance made it easier for her to sneak in the room without being detected by Celestia, but what she now knew was not something to be happy about. She wasn’t aware of the other spirits either and this one apparently is going to aid her sister in her sinister plots, ‘I need to make Blazing Heart aware of this situation at once!’ then she teleported to her room.
Back to the mountain where our heroines were… well…
“Are we there yet? Pinkie asked.
“No,” the rest except for Fluttershy replied.
Ten seconds later, “are we there yet?” Pinkie asked again.
“No…” was the other’s reply with slightly less patience in their voices.
Another ten seconds later, “are we there yet?”
“No!” the others yelled in unison.
Then another ten seconds after… “Are we-“ Pinkie started.
“Pinkie!” Twilight called.
“Yeeeeees?” Pinkie replied innocently.
“You’ve been asking that for the past twenty minutes, please stop it already.”
“But Twilight…”
“No buts!”
“Thank you, darling. I don’t know how much of that I could have possibly tolerated,” Rarity said with a thankful nod.
The group was in peace and quietness for about two minutes, they didn’t notice the two new ponies following at Pinkie and Fluttershy’s side.
Then the one at Pinkie’s side that looked like she was up to no good spoke up, “Hey, Twilight,” she said in her cheerful voice.
“What now?” Twilight replied robotically not noticing the difference in voices.
“Are we there yet?” the cheerful new pony snorted, the other one who looked very bored facehoofed in response. Fluttershy and Pinkie couldn’t help but smile at these silly antics.
Twilight twitched and violently turned, “Pin-“ but her sentence got cut short when she was face to face with a different pony, “kie?”
“Hi!” the light orange unicorn mare with a darker orange mane tied in a ponytail with a yellow ribbon said enthusiastically. “Also no, I’m not Pinkie. I’m Gale, Gale Graywind! And that one over there,” Gale pointed at the other mare who looked almost exactly the same as her but didn’t show nearly the same enthusiasm, “that’s my sis, Breeze.”
“Hi,” Breeze said plainly and without putting much energy into it.
Twilight was speechless at first but recovered soon after, and then a round of introductions happened.
“Excuse me if this sound rather rude but, why are you following us and how did you got here for that matter?” Twilight asked, she didn’t know why but she had a hunch that these two weren’t just any two random sisters.
Gale tapped her chin faking thoughtfulness; Breeze smacked her on the back of the head.
“Ow! Why did you do that, sis?” Gale complained as she rubbed the back of her head.
Breeze’s expression grew sterner. Even if her overall appearance didn’t change at all, it gave this feeling of authority, “Reply. Because you’re messing around with them.”
“But you didn’t have to hit me so hard!” Gale yelled indignantly.
“Counter point. Maybe that way your brain will work better.” Breeze replied with no change of tone.
The rest of the group stared at each other by this strange speaking pattern that just manifested itself and shrugged.
Breeze looked at them, they stiffened in place, but relaxed when her expression softened or at least gave that sensation, “Apology. Please forgive her, she’s an airhead.” Breeze lowered her head and used her leg to make Gale do the same regardless of her protests.
Twilight giggled awkwardly, “Please rise, everything’s ok. Let’s not make this more awkward than it already is.”
Breeze let her sister go; due to Gale fighting back Breeze’s pressure she stumbled backwards and fell on her back.
“Thankful. Thank you for understanding,” Breeze gave a thankful nod.
“Sis, speak normally! You were doing fine just a little while ago!” Gale yelled from her place on the ground.
Breeze looked at her sister with a frown, “Offended. There’s nothing wrong with my way of speaking sis. I dropped the other way because I didn’t like it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gale waved a hoof dismissively.
Breeze was silent for a brief moment but then she seemed to remember something, “Reminded. We’ve been following you for a bit now, we teleported here after feeling big sis Efreet around.”
That last part raised some red flags on the group.
“Efreet? May I ask who that is?” Twilight being cautious tested the waters.
Gale got up and with a smug smile pointed at the unconscious Blazing Heart, “don’t play dumb now, we now that one is Ifry!”
“Hey! That’s how I call her! Don’t steal my nicknames!” Pinkie complained.
Gale booped Pinkie, “I have known Ifry for way longer and she loves me! So she will not mind me borrowing a nickname from you!”
Pinkie scrunched her face for a moment, but then countered back with a boop herself, “now that’s where you’re wrong Galey! My cute niece loves me! So she will not let you call her that!”
Gale scrunched her face very much like Pinkie did due to the boop on her nose. Then she frowned at the pink pony, “Oh, is that a challenge!?”
Pinkie patted Gale on the head, “there’s no challenge when the winner is already decided, little grasshopper,” she said with smugness that wasn’t very common to see on her.
“Oh yeah?” Gale asked.
“Yeah!” Pinkie replied.
This exchange lasted for a good five minutes before something different was said, no need to say that the others were staring dumbfounded at the ridiculous situation playing out in front of their eyes.
“Well my niece and I had a lot of fun playing, eating sweets and hopping around!” Pinkie shot.
“Oh yeah? Well, we got to the fair and Ifry got a plushy for me that I still sleep with to this very day!” Gale shot back.
The amount of random things these two shouted at each other ranged from unrelated to highly embarrassing, how they managed to keep it going with a straight face was a mystery for those who were present.
Ten minutes passed…
Both of them were out of breath for yelling with no rest.
“Well…” Pinkie paused due to lack of oxygen, “how about that?”
Gale was just as out of breath as the party pony but she had one last thing to say, “t-that’s nothing,” she paused, “we’re going to get married!” she shouted one last time.
But what she just said made everypony stop their mental processes just to make sure they heard it correctly.
Except for one, “no, you’re not,” Fluttershy’s soft voice was heard as she closed the distance.
Gale focused on the butter colored pegasus now, “what did you say?”
“No, you’re not going to do that,” Fluttershy repeated in a weirdly calm tone and neutral expression.
“Who’s gonna stop me?” Gale said defiantly not knowing what she could unleash by being so in this situation.
“I’ am,” was Fluttershy’s only reply as she stared Gale dead in the eye without even blinking a single time.
“Worry. Sis, you should stop that,” Breeze warned Gale something wasn’t right for her right now.
Gale wasn’t even paying attention to her sister, “not now, sis.” She waved a dismissive hoof in her direction before focusing on Fluttershy again, “sorry, where were we again?”
“We were at the point where you forgot about the marrying idea,” Fluttershy stated firmly.
“Oh right, how about no? I kind of need that idea to make it a reality you know,” Gale still insisted on it.
The rest shied away without making a comment.
Fluttershy got right in front of Gale, “You may want to stay away of such ideas, if that’s not an inconvenience.”
Gale raised an eye-brow, “didn’t you hear me before? I won’t-“ then she noticed Fluttershy’s intense stare and it made her nervous somehow, “forget about it?”
“You may want to forget it,” Fluttershy repeated.
“I won’t-“ Gale started
“You may want to forget it,” Fluttershy cut her off with the same sentence with no difference in tone.
“I…” Gale wasn’t sure about what to say anymore as she backed away.
“You may,” Fluttershy stared down at the mare as she followed her until she cowered behind her sister.
“S-sis, do something!” Gale asked for help.
Breeze sighed, “Affirmation. I’ll make sure she forgets that, so please don’t traumatize her.”
Fluttershy smiled at Breeze, “thank you very much.”
Breeze nodded.
“Hey!” Gale complained but soon regretted it when her sister and Fluttershy stared at her, “n-nevermind.”
The ones who were outside this little situation just stared at Fluttershy with some newfound respect and a little fear.
“Please remind me to never annoy Fluttershy,” Rainbow stated suddenly.
“I got it wrote down already, I’ll give you a copy later Rainbow,” Twilight added, “I’ll have more ready for you too Rarity, Applejack,” she said, receiving thankful nods from her friends.
“For now I think it’s better if we keep going,” Twilight suggested as she saw nothing else was happening anymore, everypony agreed and they were on their way again with their new companions.
Meanwhile at the cave that was at the peak of the mountain, Razer was tapping his claws on the floor with impatience.
“Mares, always taking forever to do stuff,” he said to no one in particular.
“Razer… you are making assumptions now…” Winter told him as she folded the sheet he put on her during her short nap.
“Probably,” Razer paused to think for a second, “but judging by your interactions with other ponies, I won’t be surprised if I’m right on this one.”
Winter rested a hoof on him, “I just wish they are not mean…”
“We’ll know soon enough I think, I just want it to be today,” Razer said sarcastically as he keep looking at the entrance of the cave.
Luna was in her room, just finished writing the letter she would send to Blazing Heart to warn her about Nightmare and her apparent alliance with Celestia.
She re-read it to make sure she didn’t omit anything; being sure everything was there she rolled the parchment and put her seal on it.
When she was about to sent the letter, her room became darker. She knew this phenomenon quite well, she just witness it in her sister’s room.
Luna didn’t lose her composure, but was in high alert.
“You may show yourself, Nightmare. I know you are here,” she said as calmly as she could, considering the risk that this Spirit represented.
As on cue, the soft clopping of hooves was heard and the same light gray unicorn mare showed up with an amusing expression, holding her unfolded wooden fan covering her mouth.
But as the refined lady she was, Nightmare folded her fan and bowed her head in greeting, “greetings Princess Luna. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the mare who helped expanding my darkness around Equestria. Though it was unfortunate for our reunion to be a thousand years late.”
Luna was impressed to see this calm demeanor from such Spirit, but her unreadable expression unnerved Luna to some degree.
Assuming a regal posture, Luna decided to discover what the Spirit was doing on her chambers, “state your intentions at once, I know you are not here just to have a small talk.”
Nightmare smiled, “My, my. You are much more interesting than your older sister, she has succumbed to her own greed, but you seem to have your dignity still intact. Very impressive,” she gave her honest opinion.
But Luna still didn’t have her answer, “I appreciate your compliment, but you didn’t answer my question. Please state what business do you have with me.”
Nightmare didn’t lose her calm demeanor, “You may say I’m just curious.”
“Curious?” Luna raised an eye brow at that statement.
Nightmare nodded, “Yes, curious.” She paused momentarily and saw Luna’s stare and her curiosity to know what she meant by ‘curious’, “I knew you sneaked in the little conversation your sister and I had a few minutes ago. But I’m curious as to why you didn’t announce yourself and why did you wrote a letter about it.”
Luna’s mask faded slightly but held strong, “why do you assume it was a letter about said conversation?” She asked as naturally as possible, “I could have written a letter about any topic.”
Nightmare covered her lips with her folded fan and giggled amusingly, “D’aww, I like you Princes Luna, you are an adorable mare.”
Luna blushed brightly at such comment.
Nightmare composed herself, “but you speak what you write loudly. It’s a habit most foals have at a young age; some ponies even have it at adulthood.” She smiled warmly, “that said, I did not expect a Princess would have such habit.”
That did it, Luna’s mask broke and she pouted visibly with her blush still present on her cheeks.
Nightmare flashed a coy smile and approached Luna; this made the moon Princess nervous.
“You know where my dear Efreet is located, don’t you?” Nightmare asked with a tone that did not match her behavior.
Luna didn’t know what to answer. Since she knew that regardless of her reply, Nightmare was not somepony to be trusted and she wasn’t going to betray her friend now.
“I don’t know,” Luna started. “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell to the likes of you,” her determination overrode her fear for this mare.
The smile on Nightmare’s face didn’t fall, neither did her composed behavior. “Very well,” Nightmare sighed, “I thought you would know her whereabouts, being her friend for such a long time.” Nightmare bowed one last time, “I apologize for intruding in your personal chambers Princess Luna, we shall speak again under more comfortable circumstances.” Nightmare’s smile became warmer, “Until then, be careful of the one that brings shine to these lands.” With that, the shadowy mare dissipated in the darkness and with her departure the room lighted up once again.
Luna had no words for what just happened, ‘why would Nightmare of all ponies act like that? It was almost the total opposite of how she acted with my sister. Also “be careful of the one that brings shine to the land?” why did she suddenly referred to my sister in that way?’
Shaking her head a few times and focused on the letter that lay forgotten on the circular table, this is when Luna noticed another abnormal behavior from Nightmare. ‘If she wanted to make sure about the contents of this letter, why didn’t she just take it herself?’
With these and many more doubts on her mind, Luna finally sent the letter to her friend.
The group finally reached the top of the mountain; Twilight being the leader of the group in Efreet’s absence decided that they should cautiously hide behind a big rock some distance away from the cave that was close by.
Gale raised a hoof. “Can I ask something?”
Twilight nodded, “Sure, what is it?”
“Why are we hiding here? And why are we here for that matter?” Gale asked innocently after being with them for a little time now.
Twilight wanted to facehoof so hard right now, but she stopped herself from doing so. Letting out a sigh she looked at Gale, “we are looking for a mare that was seen coming to this mountain.”
Gale blinked a few times, and then raised an eye-brow. “So, you came all the way up here, risking your friends’ lives for a random mare that was seen coming here?”
Breeze smacked her sister in the back of the head, “annoyed. Shut up sis.”
Gale shook her head to get the dizziness away, and then focused on her unexpressive sister with a frown, “Sis, why did you do that!?”
“Reply. You’re being rude and dumb,” Breeze said keeping her stoic expression.
Gale got in Breeze’s face with an even more notorious frown, Breeze’s stare got sharper as well and the two started arguing.
As everypony was distracted by these two yelling at each other. Nopony noticed the slight twitch Blazing Heart made on Pinkie’s back, nor the hoodie wearing mare who was watching them timidly from the cave’s entrance in the distance.
Winter Glimmer poked her head from the cave’s entrance upon hearing voices outside to check on what was happening.
“Can you remind me why I must stay here and not burn their flanks out of here?” Razer asked as he lay down with his head resting on a supporting claw.
Winter turned to see her dragon friend, “shhh…” she shushed him, before speaking on her soft voice, “don’t be so loud Razer… please…”
Razer’s response was only to roll his eyes.
Winter smiled at him, for complying. But then she felt poking on her back.
Turning around once again, she booped noses with the pinkest pony to ever exist.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! Who are you two? And why were you spying on us?” Pinkie said in a single breath with noticeable enthusiasm while pushing her nose against Winter’s with each word.
Winter was obviously nervous and didn’t know what to do in this situation, “Emm… I…” she stuttered and backed away some.
“Yeeeeees?” Pinkie advanced with a happy smile.
“Eeek!” Winter ran and hid behind Razer’s arm.
“Aww… What’s wrong?” she asked the big red dragon.
Razer looked at the pink pony incredulously, “you don’t seem to be nervous around me, pink pony.”
“Why would I be nervous, you silly?” Pinkie asked to the big dragon with a smile.
“Well, I’am a big scary dragon and you a puny pink pony.” Razer stated menacingly, “I could easily crush you right now for intruding in my cave.”
Pinkie snorted and giggled, irritating Razer even more, “but you won’t do that.”
Razer growled at her with no real effect on the giggling pony.
Winter was getting worried from Razer’s temper at the moment. But before she could say something, Pinkie did.
“Draggy can I speak with that mare behind your arm? I think that’s the mare my niece was looking for, please, please, pleaaaaaase,” Pinkie begged cutely.
Razer scowled and got up.
Pinkie looked up at the giant dragon, “oooooooh, you’re a tall boy.”
Razer’s eye twitched, and snarled.
“Razer no…” Winter tried to calm him down very quietly.
But her plea fell into deaf ears, because Razer blew fire towards Pinkie.
Pinkie’s eyes got wide as another source of flames surrounded her protectively, effectively blocking the dragon’s fire breath.
Razer had the smuggest expression, thinking that the annoyance was dealt with as Winter looked in shock at what her friend did.
“Razer…” she started, “how could you…” her voice breaking to nearly the point of tears.
But as the flames faded, an amused giggle could be heard from inside.
The smug look on Razer’s face fell down into an incredulous one.
Winter on the other hoof, got a familiar feeling emanating from the voice.
The ones outside the cave were oblivious of what was happening inside, that was until they heard the explosion of flames followed by said flames erupting from the entrance.
“What happened!?” Twilight asked in a slight panic.
Fluttershy just looked at the entrance of the cave with no real expression on her face. She just froze watching that cave, tears slowly going down her cheeks.
Breeze noticed Fluttershy’s odd behavior, “question. Are you ok?” she asked.
The others turned to see what was happening, as the worry for their missing friend intensified.
“Blazy!!!” unnatural to her quiet self Fluttershy let out an ear piercing and painful scream as she bolted to the cave.
Applejack was quick and caught her by her tail, but she didn’t expect Fluttershy of all ponies to outperform her in strength. Even as Aj clawed her hooves on the ground this did little to stop Fluttershy as she advanced inch by inch against all the odds.
“Blazy!” Fluttershy called again.
Rainbow stepped in front of her to stop her, “Fluttershy, what are you doing!?”
Even with Rainbow holding her back, Fluttershy still advanced.
“Fluttershy, stop!” Rainbow yelled at her and looked at her right on the eyes.
The determination and pain in Fluttershy’s eyes was quite evident, this took Rainbow aback, “Fluttershy… you…” but before she could continue another explosion of flames erupted from the cave, “watch out!” she shouted as she tackled Fluttershy to the ground for cover.
“So annoying!” Gale’s voice sounded in front of them as a strong current of wind manifested itself and changed the direction of the flames.
Looking at the rest of their friends Rainbow saw Breeze in front of them and the same wind current protecting them.
Then another could be heard.
“Weeeeeee!” Pinkie’s upbeat voice sounded as sphere of flames flew off the cave.
Everypony followed the flaming sphere to where it landed and then dissipated; leaving in its place two ponies, Pinkie and a now awakened Blazing Heart.
“That was fun! Can we do it again Ifry? Can we? Can we?” Pinkie asked excitedly.
“Maybe later Pinkie, now I have a rude dragon butt to kick,” Efreet told to her hyperactive friend just as the big red dragon got out of the cave as well with his pony companion, “You think you are tough? Attacking me while I was sleeping, such a tough dragon you are!” she said mockingly.
“I’m going to crush you, you pest!” the dragon growled menacingly and tried to stomp on the ponies.
“Razer, no!” Winter yelled to her dragon friend.
“Too late Glimmer, these ponies asked for it,” Razer said as his front claw hit the area where Pinkie and Efreet were but felt nothing under it.
A little distance away where Rainbow, Aj, Flutershy and Gale were, Efreet appeared from erupting flames with Pinkie in tow.
“Pinkie stay he-“ Efreet was cut short by a butter colored Pegasus who hug tackled her.
“You’re fine!” Fluttershy cried, then locked eye contact with Efreet, “Don’t worry me like that ever again, missy. Are we clear?”
Efreet just rolled her eyes, “ok, mommyshy,” she returned the hug and stroked Fluttershy’s mane to calm her down, “now please stop crying, I don’t like seeing you cry.”
“Not fair! I wanna hug Ifry too! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!” Gale threw a tantrum like some silly filly.
“Stop ignoring me!” Razer growled as he tried to attack the ponies that were ignoring him.
But a strong wind made him stumble backwards.
“What!” he said in disbelief that some wind just made him stumble.
“Shut up!” he heard before the same wind violently hit him right in the face with extreme force as if he was hit by another full grown dragon.
“Statement. You’re so blunt sis,” Breeze said as her group reunited with them.
“You also shut up; I’m really mad right now! Thi-“ Gale was about to continue but a hoof ruffled her mane.
“Good to see you’re still very temperamental, Berserk.” Efreet said with a giggle.
“Awww,” Gale pouted, but she was secretly enjoying the attention.
Breeze stared at Efreet, “Greeting. Hello big sister Efreet, it’s good to meet you again,” she said in her practically robotical speech pattern.
Efreet snorted, “You’re still with the big sister complex, Typhoon?” she told Breeze with an amused smile and a raised brow.
Breeze’s expression just slightly changed to a small frown, barely noticeable unless you paid close attention to her facial features.
“Don’t make that face, I was just joking,” Efreet laughed at Breeze’s reaction as she said this.
“Watch out!” Applejack yelled by pointing behind them with a leg.
Breeze looked at Applejack, “Thankful. Thank you,” she then made a circular motion with her leg, and a fresh wind current blocked a fire wave that was soon to hit them otherwise, “Offended. It is rude to attack from behind.”
Gale smiled amusingly towards the dragon, “It seems this big boy needs to be teached a lesson,” then looked at Efreet giddily, “oh, can I impart that lesson Ifry?” she said excitedly.
Efreet shrugged, “when was I able to change your mind, Berserk?” she gave her a wink; “go ahead, I need to talk to Hermit anyways.” Then she looked at Breeze, “can I leave them under your care, Typhoon?” she pointed with a leg at her group of friends.
Gale smiled amusingly, and then with a big grin on her face, she launched herself against the dragon.
Breeze nodded to Efreet’s request and stood in front of the group.
As all of this was taking place, Twilight couldn’t do more than intently stare in awe, ‘I-I have to learn about this magic! This is incredible!’
Gale using her wind to impulse herself, leaped upwards with tremendous speed. Dodging a claw going her way trying to squish her she made it to the dragon’s face where he trying to eat her, but with a sideways impulse she got out of the game, making the dragon eat her dust.
“Can’t catch me now, can you?” Gale mocked while circling around the annoyed dragon’s head.
“Stand still, you bug!” Razer yelled with fury at his little attacker.
As a response he got another wind blast to the face.
Hermit looked at Efreet approaching her and was confused about what to do on this situation.
‘Shelooks like she could volt out at any moment now,’ Efreet thought as she slowed down to a stop, ‘what should I do?’ she thought and thought until something clicked in her mind.
Hermit just got even more confused as she saw Efreet sit down just a few meters away from her with a smile on her face.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Hermit. I just want to talk, we don’t have to continue this, meaningless battle,” Efreet calmly expressed her feeling about the situation. Then she hinted to the side with her head, “You don’t want him getting hurt for nothing either, right?”
Hermit gazed at the one-sided battle her friend was involved in, ‘why did it go this way?’ Tears started appearing in her eyes.
Efreet placed a hoof on her distressed friend’s withers, getting her attention, “That’s all I need for an answer, my old friend.” She said before teleporting without waiting for a reply from Hermit.
